Wyong field day 2017

The predicted rain held off this year and it was great conditions for the annual Wyong Amateur Radio field day.

As always the ARNSW Home Brew group had an excellent display of home built gear.

I cheated and showed how well I had installed a Bitx40 module in a plastic box. The best bit of my construction was the gutter guard speaker grill. Peter VK2EMU, John VK2ASU, Kevin VK2KB and others were often mobbed with enthusiastic crowds.

There was retro gear (if you don't count the 3D printed coil form):

A fascinating demo of the pulse width control of a servo motor as using in radio control planes.

Again this year I had the pleasure of assisting David Rowe on the FreeDV / codec2 exhibit.

We were kept busy with many enquiries and also people purchasing SM1000 units.

A real standout for me was the presentation by the Bureau of Meteorology's Space Weather Services. They have some excellent tools for ionospheric prediction and even a downloadable application for Microsoft Windows.

Congratulations to all involved in the field day this year, it was very smooth and seemed like a terrific turnout given the threatening weather. I can't wait until next year.