After having tea on Wednesday night at the Orbost Hotel, I decided to head back out to the Mount Raymond Regional Park VKFF-0975 to see if I could pick up my remaining 16 contacts, to qualify the park for the global WWFF program.
It was just a short 15 minute drive down the Princes Highway from Orbost to the park. I didn’t bother driving to the top this time. I pulled into a little track just off Tower Road. I also didn’t bother running out the dipole for this activation, but rather ran my mobile set up in the Toyota Hi Lux, which consisted of an Icom IC-7000, 100 watts output, and the Codan self tuning 9350 antenna.
I booked in to the 7130 DX Net and was very pleased to hear that conditions on the 40m band were quite good. I logged a handful of VK’s and two New Zealand stations. This included Gary ZL3SV, who had a huge signal. Gary runs a 2,000 foot log, 640 metre centre feed sloper antenna on top of a hill.
I then moved up the band and called CQ and I soon had my 16 required contacts in the log, with a QSO with Lawrence KN7D in Utah, USA (5/5 both ways).
At the end of the net I headed back into Orbost, where I retired to the motel room for a well earnt rest. It had been another very enjoyable, but long day.
I worked the following stations on 40m SSB:-
- VK7ROY
- VK5MJ
- ZL2ASH
- VK7FRJG
- VK2HJW
- VK7RN
- ZL3SV
- VK5JDS
- VK2SK
- VK7VAZ
- VK3FMKE
- VK2VE
- VK4ZD
- VK4DI
- VK2XXM
- KN7D
- VK2VOM
- VK2NEO
- VK5FTCT
- VK5VBR
VK5PAS 
Nice work. An inspiration for me to ‘close out’ a few parks not yet up to the required 44 in 2018.
Regards
Chris
VK5FR/VK4FR/4W6FR
G’day Chris,
The band conditions during our earlier activation at Mount Raymond were terrible, resulting in me heading out for a 2nd bite at the park. The 7130 DX Net helped rack up the required 44.
Cheers,
Paul VK5PAS.