SOTA Activation VK3/VE-007 Mt McKay

29th December 2012 late afternoon.

Mt McKay is a SOTA summit about 5Km West of Falls Creek. Took about 20 minutes to drive to from Falls Creek. There is an access road right to the top. The road continues around the far side of the ridge you can see here. It is steepish towards the top, but should be okay in a 2WD.

There's a communications tower on top. Walked down out of the activation zone and back in, found a convenient metal pole embedded in the rocks from some long gone structure suitable for mounting the extension pole in.

Jammed the extension pole in using some rocks and branches, ran one leg of the dipole to a conveniently placed pole nearby and the tied the other to a rock. Set up the FT817 around the side.

The view was fantastic! So too were signals on 40 m, most 59+. Managed to work 10 stations before getting hungry and heading back down to Falls Creek for a meal. It's worth coming here just for the views, and would make a great radio site at any time.

Short video of the setup on the summit