2012 CQ WPX Contest from home QTH. Using 1k power for the first time in a contest. ACMA has allowed a trial of 1k from 1 March 2012 for Advanced Licence holders in VK.

2012 John Moyle Field Day 17 March, we are on Russell Island OC-137 using di-pole antennas, facing North.

My OM John (VK4IO) and I are lucky that we live on a couple of acres and have room to play with antennas, which include the broadband 40-30-17-12m hex beam and the TH6DXX for 20, 15 & 10. Our main 80m antenna is a horizontal 160m full size loop, fed with ladder line, which works extremely well.There are various other dipoles and loops.

Broadband Hex Beam

TH6DXX beside the shack in the down position.

We also have a home brew 20,15 & 10 spider beam for field days and have experimented with 40m verticals and 2 sets of 2 x 40m dipoles arranged at right angles, feeding into a remote switch box.

I enjoy the competitions, so even though the station is very basic it is set up to be easy to work in a competition. Station consists of an Elecraft K3 driving an Acom 1000 amp and the new Palstar HF-Auto Tuner. We enjoy portable operations and usually try to go camping for any field day or contest that lends themselves to portable operations. The backup radio for portable is another K3 with tuner, and when in a serious competition we use a KPA500 amp. We took part in our first dxpedition to Lord Howe Island (VK9LA) in March 2009 and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Summer portable set up during John Moyle Field Day 2010

Winter portable operation in the same location for the VK Shires Contest 2010.