Welcome to my QRZ page.   Please sign my contact log (above).

I live on the edge of Lake Eildon National Park in the foothills to the Victoria Alpine Ranges.  The closest town is Mansfield, a town with a population of 3000 people.    The closest city is Melbourne, which is approx 2 hours drive away.

I am 37 years old and have been interested in radio,  electronics and computers since I was a teenager, during the 1980's. The radio part of the hobby started out by building a short wave receiver kit.  I soon discovered I could hear more  with longer lengths of wire strung up in trees.  I  found (thanks to some advice from my electronics teacher at school)  that I could stack 2 short wave receivers ontop of each other and use one as a BFO for the other one if tuned very carefully and that would allow me to 'decode' the Donald Duck SSB (very crudely) I would often hear.  I also found, to my surprise, that my incredibly long length of wire didn't improve the reception on our T.V when hooked up to it ...... of course it made it worse !

This is a picture of the old shack.   (New picture coming soon)

The reason for the new pictures is that I have just setup a remote Flex 3000 SDR system up on our hilltop.  I've sold the

TS 870 and the shack is looking much more modern now.    Here are some pictures of the remote setup.

This pictures show the case that holds everything, which I picked up for $20 from the recycling center, some vinyl covering it a 40watt and 20watt solar panel, a 17bi 2.4Ghz sector antenna and a outdoor 2.4Ghz router.  

 
In this picture you can see the Flex 3000,  Relay control box (so I can switch it on and off remotely) a Pentium 4D computer, a router, a weather station,  (runs http://www.mansfieldweather.com.au) a 150AH battery and solar charge controller.

This is my 40M antenna.  It is actually 2 switchable, Inverted V dipoles at 90 deg to each other
on a 20meter aluminium mast.
This antenna has been amazingly effective.  It has received QRP Voice from Canada
(VE3OWO using a dipole) several times (TX from me was QRO) on 40m.
Deatiled information about this setup is available by clicking here

Here is my Hy Gain TH3 Junior on a 12 Meter mast.   All of my main antennas are
up on this hill, which is at 430M (approx 1400 feet)  with sharp drop offs to the North and South
and a mild dropoff to the East (this image is the east view).
The mast is actually a Yatch mast that I picked up for free from a junk pile.
I have a steel post with an electric winch attached to it to easily raise and lower it.

A close up of the TH 3 Jnr, with Mt Buller, a popular Ski Village in the distance to the South East.
During winter 2009 we had several weather fronts creating 90 km/h+  wind and while the TH3-JNR looked terrible the way it swayed around, it came out all straight  and tuned.   It works well and suits my light weight mast and rotator.

Finally this is a terrain profile graph of the top of the hill created using HFTA.
    It shows the take off angles for 14Mhz towards North East (Short path U.S and Canada)
and South East (Long Path Europe, short path South America) and compares
with flat terrain at the same mast height, 13m (40 feet) and also
flat terrain at 30M (100 feet) mast height. 

What it is showing it that there is up to 12db more gain at 1 - 5 deg take off than
the same antenna at 30m (100 foot) over flat terrain  and up to 17db more gain over the
same antenna at the same height (13m - 40 foot) over flat terrain.

The other way to read the data is there is 15 -17 dbi gain using a 3 element Yagi at
this location 13m high above the hilltop, pointing NE and SE  at
1 - 5 deg take off angles on 14 Mhz. (N, S, and SW plots are similar)

The theory is that lower angle gain is produced by the reflection of the wave
off the slope of the hill.   HFTA can only simulate horizontal waves,
vertical is another ball game.

There appears to be a sweet spot with antenna height above the hill of approx 1/2 a wavelength.
For example on 20M anything over about 13meters of height above the hill, actually
decreases the low angle gain to the point where there is less gain than over
flat terrain at 30meters (100 feet).  Therefore I have ruled out any increases to the height of
the antenna above the hill.

It isn't all roses though as to the West the ridge line rises slightly and to the NW (short path Europe)
there is another hill at almost the same height at 2000 feet distance, so the low angle
performance isn't near as good as the other directions.

Feel free to QSL direct and I will return all direct QSL's.

Thanks for visiting and good DX to you.

73s
Steve
VK3LMR