Hello and welcome to my little patch.

I first got interested in radio in the mid 1970s but was not licenced until March 1985. I was driving Interstate freight and passenger trains between VK6 and VK5 and I needed something to do during layovers.

Radio, and HF mobile in particular, proved a boon for me as I often drove the 630Kms from my home to my parents and was able to talk to someone for most of the journey.

As the years roll by and the fact that I now live in the capital city of Melbourne I don't do much on HF now, it has made way for V/UHF, the land sizes here are far too small for HF antennas and really, only just handle V/UHF antennas.

These days I mainly work on D-STAR via the 92AD, DVAP or DV dongle, I also own and maintain an Echo/IRLP node. IRLP is 8916 and Echolink is 209875, also look out for me on APRS VK3ANT-9 in the car and VK3ANT-7 while I am pedestrian mobile.

I am also in to AllStar and have set up Node 28467 using the Beagle Bone Black along with the Advanced Repeater Systems dongle and a Yaesu VX-3 H/H for the link radio. You can log in to my Node ( 28467 ) directly if you would like a chat and during our daylight hours I usually loiter around on the VK6 AllStar Hub ( 42732 ) and during our night time hours I am usually on the UK AllStar Hub ( 27066 ) or the UK HubNet Hub ( 41522 )

Occasionally I also run up my second Echo/IRLP, a PiIRLP node in fact, Node number 6705. I use this in a portable fashion through a 3G connection.

Couple of photos below. On the left is my portable PiIRLP node, on the bottom layer is the PiIRLP board, next up is the Raspberry Pi then the Baofeng 888s radio and on the top layer is the Buck voltage adapter for the 3.7 Volts to the radio. Next photo is of my AllStar Node ( 28467 ) wrapped up with rubber bands, bit agricultural I know, but it works and it's just until I find a better way to put it together the way I want. The 3rd photo shows the station without the rubber bands ie. the Beagle Bone Black, the Advanced Repeater Systems sound card and the Yaesu VX-3 H/H.

Well, I am off for a cuppa, but if you see me around then give me a call, I am always up for a chat.

73 de Ron

VK3ANT