Cullendulla Creek Nature Reserve VKFF-1918

After spending the night at Batemans Bay headed off to do another park, Cullendulla Creek Nature Reserve VKFF-1918. I had activated this park before but needed more contacts to make up the 44 needed for WWFF. The park is in 2 sections on each side of Cullendulla Creek, this time went to the Western side of the creek, near Surfside Beach. Parked at the end of a side road off Myamba Parade. Note at the end of Myamba Parade is private property with no access to the park, so need to walk around it. Sign indicating 300 m to the park.

After 300 m reached a sign explaining a bit more about the park. This is on the park boundary.

 A little further along the beach a sign for the park.

Behind the sign Cullendulla Creek walking track. If you continue to the right you can do a nice walk on a raised platform among mangroves. To avoid the crowd went to the left along the track and set up the station just off the track. Used a wooden stake for squid pole support.

Shack on the tarp.

Got on 40 m. First contact was a park to park with Paul, VK5PAS activating VKFF-1030 Finnis Conservation Park. As per the day before at Broulee Island he was using a special event call VI5LWF, , "Lest We Forget"  It is one of a number of commemorative callsigns in Australia and Europe, to commemorate the centennary of the signing of the World War I armistice on 11th November 1918. Also worked Paul under his own call.

Found a clear spot and spotted myself. Park hunters were down in signals today with lots of QSB.

VK7QP
VK3ALN/P
VK4NH, VK4DXA, ZL4TY/VK4
VK2XXM

Another park to park with VK4SMA/p mark in VKFF-1671 Wararba Creek Conservation Park.Weak but we could hear each other as both in radio quiet parks.

Worked a few more park hunters

VK4HAT
VK3ANL
VK4TJ, VK4/AC8WN, VK4/VE6XT
VK2FSAV

Unfortunately my 4200 maH LifePO4 battery, which I had also used yesterday, decided it had had enough and I could no longer transmit. I had forgotten to take a charger to recharge it overnight. So packed up and drove back home. Need to return again to this park for the 44 contacts.

Broulee Island Nature Reserve VKFF-2546

Stopping for the weekend with my partner at Batemans Bay, decided to activate a nearby WWFF park that had not been activated before, Broulee Island Nature Reserve VKFF-2546

Broulee Island lies off the coast near the holiday village of Broulee. Looking on Google Maps it does appear as an island

However switching to Satellite View shows there is a narrow land connection to the mainland

Looking on the web the island has had an interesting history, having an Inn built on it in 1842, and even a small town of South Broulee planned in the 1980s but never built. It has been a proper island and then joined to the mainland, and lost again over time. The current connection has been in place since the 1990s.

Parked at the end of Bayside St in the North Broulee Beach Car park.

After a short walk reached North Broulee beach. The island can be seen in the distance

The walk to the island is about a Km. Found a bit of a clearing on the Northern side of the island and set up the squid pole on a tree stump.

Shack on the grass on the tarp nearby.

Got on 40 m. Found VK5PAS, Paul on 7.144 Mhz calling from VKFF-1754 Totness Recreation Park. He was using a special event callsign VI5LWF, "Lest We Forget"  It is one of a number of commemorative callsigns in Australia and Europe, to commemorate the centennary of the signing of the World War I armistice on 11th November 1918.

Also worked Paul under his own call. Paul kindly offered me the frequency.

Usual park hunters called. As a new park fairly popular.

VK4RF, VK4HA
VK3ANL
VK3UH
VK2VW
VK3PF
VK5MAS
VK4TJ, VK4/AC8WN, VK4/VE6XT
VK4QQ
VK2ZVG
VK5BJE
VK4SMA
VK4NH, VK4DXA, ZL4TY/VK4
VK4FOMP/P
VK3ALN
VK7RM
VK4AAC/M
VK2KYO
VK7FOXX
VK2HHA
VK7XDM
VK3MKE/P

Most signals fairly strong but lots of QSB. As usual the short NVIS skip was missing, nothing from nearby Canberra or Sydney. Could just hear VK2IO Gerard calling me, but did not hear me reply.

Packed up after 28 contacts and walked back to the car, headed back to Batemans Bay for the evening.

FT8DMC Award Worked All Japan Call Area 17 meters

After working some missing Japanese call areas on FT8 17 m I had completed all JA call areas for the FT8DMC WAJCA FT8 award. Stations worked

JA0EVI  2017-09-02  23:27  17M   FT8  JA0
7N4OHN  2018-04-20  08:09  17M   FT8  JA1
JA2EDG  2018-04-20  07:56  17M   FT8  JA2
JH3FGI  2018-09-15  23:45  17M   FT8  JA3
JM4WUZ  2018-05-05  22:23  17M   FT8  JA4
JA5CBU  2018-10-30  08:09  17M   FT8  JA5
JH6VXP  2018-10-30  09:06  17M   FT8  JA6
JF7RJM  2018-04-20  08:02  17M   FT8  JA7
JG8FWH  2018-10-14  05:28  17M   FT8  JA8
JA9CAC  2017-12-03  05:53  17M   FT8  JA9

Applied for the award using Ultimate AAC software and once approved by the award manager downloaded from the the EPC Awards website.

Tracking Amateur Radio Blogs using Inoreader

There are lots of Amateur Radio Blogs out there and you need a way to keep track of updates to them, this is where an RSS reader is handy. In the past I used Google Reader, until Google killed it off... so switched to Feedly. This has served me well, until they restricted it to 100 feeds in the free version. As I follow far more feeds than this looked around for another RSS reader, and found Inoreader.

This has no limit on the number of feeds it can track in the free version. Migration from Feedly was simple enough, export a list of my Feeds in Feedly into an .opml file, then import them into Inoreader.

I organize my Amateur Radio feeds in folders thus. You can use your own way.

Amateur Radio Blogs Local - For VK/ZL blogs, to track local Amateur Radio Blogs.
Amateur Radio Blogs World - For Amateur Radio Blogs in the rest of the World
Amateur Radio News - The usual news sites for hams, eg ARRL, SouthGate ARC, eHam etc

As well as normal blogs I also keep track of Podcasts and Youtube Subscriptions.

A screenshot of Inoreader, showing articles in Amateur Radio Blogs World.

There is also an Android App for Inoreader, so can catch up on the news while out.

FT8DMC Worked All New Zealand Award 20 m

I've managed to qualify for the FT8DMC WANZ (Worked All New Zealand) Award on 80 m, after some more ZL contacts recently managed to qualify on 20 m too. For the award you need ZL1 (4 QSOs), ZL2 (3 QSOs), ZL3 ( 2 QSOs) and ZL4 (1 QSO).

Here are the contacts I made for 20 m

ZL1BBW              2018-10-13  05:27  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1BD               2018-10-12  06:25  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1HX               2018-04-25  01:13  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL1MVL              2018-10-13  03:42  20M   FT8      ZL1   
ZL2IAS              2018-10-04  08:07  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL2TLF              2018-10-13  05:25  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL2WD               2018-05-11  23:50  20M   FT8      ZL2   
ZL3GAV              2018-09-29  01:03  20M   FT8      ZL3   
ZL3JW               2018-09-15  01:21  20M   FT8      ZL3   
ZL4AS               2018-05-12  23:35  20M   FT8      ZL4   

Applied via the UAAC software, award approved by the Manager ZL1MVL Ian. Downloaded from the EPC website.

European Ros Club 50 Members Award

Noticed in Ultimate AAC software I had managed to contact over 50 members of the Eurobean Ros Club (ERC) so applied for the award. Downloaded from the EPC website. Here it is

FT8DMC Worked 200 Grids Awards

After some activity of FT8 lately managed to get to 200 Grid squares worked, and apply for the FT8DMC Grids WGA 200 Award, using Ultimate AAC software.

A breakdown of unique grids worked per band that I counted using Excel.

10 m - 13 Grids
17 m - 29 Grids
20 m - 26 Grids
30 m - 30 Grids
40 m - 84 Grids
80 m - 18 Grids

So most were on 40 m, to be expected at this part of the sunspot cycle... Still waiting for the higher bands to open up...

Here is the award.