Last Sunday (9th November, 2014) I headed out to the Scott Creek Conservation Park (CP), which is situated about 30 km south of Adelaide.

map courtesy of mapcarta.com

I last activated this park in September, 2013.  For full details on that activation and lots of information on the park, please have a look at my previous post.  The park has a very interesting history, and my previous post is well worth a read….

https://vk5pas.wordpress.com/2013/09/29/scott-creek-conservation-park/

The last time I activated the park, I operated from the old Almanda silver mining area.  This time, I headed to the high part of the park, off Mount Bold Road.  This is a beautiful drive through this area, with the thick scrub of Mount Bold Reservoir on one side of the road, and the Scot Creek CP on the other side.  I parked the car at one of the entry gates, and walked about 30 metres down Cup Gum Track and set up my fold up table and deck chair under the shade of some large gum trees.

map courtesy of mapcarta.com

I set up the linked dipole for 40m and tuned to my promised frequency of 7.095.  However, this was in use, so I slipped down to 7.090 and started calling CQ.  I was almost immediately greeted by Amanda VK3FQSO with a beautiful 5/9 signal.  This was followed by Peter VK3PF who was runnign QRP, with just 1 watt.  Peter was a good 5/5 signal and was easily readible with the non existent man made noise floor within the park.

A number of other stations called me using QRP during this activation.  They included Les VK5KLV who was portable at Blanche Harbour near Port Augusta.  Les was running his Yaesu FT-817, 5 watts and a linked dipole, and had a very nice 5/9 signal.  Regular QRP park hunter, Greg also called in, using just 5 watts from his home brew transceiver, with a good 5/8 signal.  Andrew VK3ARR running QRP 5 watts also called me, with a good 5/8 signal.  And then Nick VK3ANL, also running QRP 5 watts, from the backyard of his house, doing some antenna experimentations.

I was also fortunate to get one park to park contact during this activation, with Gordon VK5GY, who was operating from the Bullock Hill Conservation Park on the Fleurieu Peninsula.

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After working 20 stations on 40m in VK2, VK3, and VK5, I qsy’d to 20m and put out some CQ calls on 14.310 mhz on 20m.  My first caller was Manuel CU3BL in the Azores Islands.  Manuel was an excellent 5/9 signal and I received a 5/7 from him with my 40 watts.  My only other caller on 20m was Dave VK6SG operating from a Mens shed in Western Australia.

So, after just a little over an hour in the park I had a total of 22 contacts in the log.  It was time to head off to the Mark Oliphant Conservation Park, just a short distance away.

The following stations were worked on 40m SSB:-

1. Amanda VK3FQSO
2. Peter VK3PF/qrp
3. Nev VK5WG
4. Les VK5KLV/p/qrp
5. Gordon VK5GY/p (Bullock Hill CP)
6. Greg VK5LG
7. Phil VK3BHR
8. Greg VK5GJ/qrp
9. Peter VK5KPR
10. Andrew VK3ARR/qrp
11. Brian VK5FMID
12. Tom VK5FTRG
13. Stuart VK5STU
14. Nick VK3ANL/qrp
15. Chris VK2SR
16. Kevin VK3VEK
17. Steve VK3VM
18. Peter VK3TKK
19. Peter VK2NEO
20. Ivan VK5HS

The following stations were worked on 20m SSB:-

1. Manuel CU3BL
2. Dave VK6SG