After enjoying some very nice fish and chips from one of the local take aways in Golden Beach, I decided to venture out to the Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park VKFF-0747 as it was a Monday night (6th November 2017) and the 7130 DX Net was on.

Our plans were to activate the park on Tuesday morning, but I thought I might be able to sneak in a few contacts to go towards the 44 that are required to qualify the park for the global World Wide Flora Fauna (WWFF) program.

The Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park is just a short drive from Golden Beach.

Above:- Map showing the shot distance from Golden Beach to the Gippsland Lakes Coastal Park.  Map courtesy of Plotaroute

On my way to the park I spoke with Mal VK5MJ who was booming in at 5/9 plus.  However the static crashes were very loud and it didn’t look too promising for the net.

I found a dirt track off the Longford-Loch Sport Road and operated from the vehicle with the Icom IC-7000 and the Codan 9350 self tuning antenna on the back of the Toyota Hi Lux.  But my prediction of the noise getting in the way of a good net came true.  I logged just 4 stations, with many others struggling to hear me through the static crashes.  So after 30 minutes I ‘pulled stumps’ and headed back into Golden Beach.

I worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-

1. VK5MJ
2. VK7FRJG
3. VK2FOUZ
4. VK7VAZ