Weekend away in the van near Goulburn playing ham radio

Kevin, VK2KB, kindly invited me to stay on a friend's property near Goulburn, south of Sydney. On a hill near the homestead, Kevin had installed a wire dipole for 40m. We added an extra dipole (fan style) for 80m and later Kevin put up another dipole for 160m.

The site seems too close for communication on 40m but 80m and in the evening, 160m was excellent.

Having no mains power and distant neighbours promises low noise and it certainly is up on the hill but closer to the house we found that the power inverter for the home solar system created quite an RF racket.

We put up a 40m dipole closer to the house (and power) which we transmitted on WSPR using an Ultimate beacon 3 and were received widely.

On Sunday we listened to the ARNSW Sunday broadcast from Sydney. You can see some of the antenna work here.

On Sunday evening, reception on 160m was excellent as you can hear here:

Out here, the blocks seem to all be 100 acres and up. I slept comfortably in the van even though the overnight low was 3C.

It was wonderful to meet a few neighbours who have built wonderful houses tuned to their own comfort. Here's Nick's place.

Nick also has built a pizza over out of dirt from an ant mound.

Pretty much everything is re-cycled.

Another neighbour, Michael, (shown at the top right of this post), showed us very interesting VR180 and VR360 movies playing on a Samsung Gear VR.