There was lots of excellent junk to pick through.
Some amazing pieces of gear including this light wave communications system.
The car boot sale area was full of interesting stuff tastefully arranged.
The historical radio display had some early marconi triodes I hadn't seen before.
Dr Naomi McClure-Griffiths gave a riveting talk on radio astronomy in Australia, she really covered much of the galaxy and how we observe it - a big topic.
Today I learned (TIL) that Australia is uniquely placed for the square kilometre array telescope and there is so much good science to do that we must all support this venture.
Dr McClure-Griffiths is a great presenter and answered all our questions - I wanted to know how they measure the magnetic polarisation of bodies far off in space. She showed fantastic movies of radiation from the sky animated by frequency of the H1 line (due to doppler shift) - I'd love to see these as a 3D frame.
I bought a few things: egg insulators, other antenna hardware, a balun core, and Nigel kindly gave me a reduction drive. Jaycar were selling a huge amount of products which had been returned to them as faulty. I paid $10 for a remote weather station with a base that has a USB port to send readings to a computer. Although returned as faulty it worked out of the box for me.
It measures temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, wind direction and rainfall.
Also I picked up a few books, "QRP Basics" by Rev. George Dobbs, G3RJV, and "HF Antennas for all locations" by Les Moxon, G6XN.
The biggest purchase was a Mizuho TRX-100 40m CW transceiver. It's a kit from the 80s and 90s, rather hacked about by the previous owner by the looks of it but mostly seems to work.
Thanks to all the hard working organisers for a great day out. I always enjoy getting tea from giant pots and eating crackers with cheese cubes.
