All of my QSL Cards are unique
If you receive a QSL card from me you can be assured that no one else will have the same card. Each card is created individually with a different picture from somewhere in Australia on it.
As of 29th. October 2012 VK2ARE become VK2JI.
I started in Amateur Radio about 35 years ago, getting my class B call G8GLM and operating on 2m & 70cm in Hull, East Yorkshire, England. After a gap of 30 years I once again took up the Amateur Radio hobby, now based in Woy Woy on the Central Coast of NSW Australia (about 40km north of Sydney). I have also renewed the G8 call for use while in the UK.
I have got up a couple of HF antennas up and am enjoying learning the HF bands.
I enjoy contest operating, especially the VHF/UHF field day contests and am an active member of my local club - the Central Coast Amateur Radio Club - http://www.ccarc.org.au.
HF equipment is either
a. a Yaesu FT747GXII running 100 watts into a Snowdonia Radio Company multi-band SRC-X80 vertical ( see http://www.snowdonia-radio-company.co.uk/ourshop/prod_514853-SRC-X80.html )at 3m above ground or about 4m above sea level. For such a simple antenna (it's a 9:1 UNUN balun with 5.8m of telescopic aluminium tubing on the top of it and no ground plane) it works pretty well and great value for money at UKL50.00! I'm looking forward to trying a second one of these portable during summer
or
b. a Kenwood TS-2000 driving about 750-800W PEP output from a pair of RM Italy HLA-300 Plus solidstate linears running in parrallel into a Full wave 40m horizontal loop antenna at 7m AGL. I am "BLOWN AWAY" at how good this simple, cheap antenna works - I have even created a video on how low the noise level is with this antenna - you can find it on YouTube here: http://youtu.be/JiFIyZzfnUo
VHF equipment is either the TS-2000 again or a simple Chinese Wouxun KG-UVD1P HT into an V-2000 6m/2m/70cm vertical mounted on the roof at about 5m AGL or a 2metre or 6metre Stressed Moxon beam or an arrow 2/70 crossed yagi antenna (vertical on 2m, horizontal on 70cm), these roatable beams are on a mast at about 6m AGL.
Satellite gear is a 2W Baofeng dual band FM HT and a second hand-held Arrow 2/70 antenna.
