The sign stated private property, but foot traffic okay. While walking up passed a jogger and several mountain bikes, so seems no real problems with access.
The road curved around to the left and up, with good views to the East
To save some time I avoided a loop in the road and just followed some of the many mountain bike tracks to the top. Quite a forest of TV towers up here.
Not a lot of supports for a squid pole though. Near the summit used a Telstra "Do not dig" sign for supporting it. Seen on the left here.
Set up the squid pole and tied the ends of the 40m dipole to a couple of rocks on the ground.
Got on 40m and started a huge pileup...Most signals from VK1, VK2 and VK3 were S9++, very strong. Guess the flatness of the surrounding area and the time of day, sunset, helped. Finished the last of the pileup at 5pm, just on sunset.Worked 21 stations. Walked back down in the twilight and drove to Shepparton for the night.
Gidday Ian, dunno how I stumbled across your page. Mt Major used to be a popular picnic spot for locals in the area, but the activities of some, led to the closure of the area to the general public. Vehicle access is still available I believe, by prior arrangement with Dookie College. You pick up the keys, then return them when finished. A call to the college would confirm this. The area was popular during the 'CB ' boom of the 70's and 80's with many trying their hand at DX on SSB. I know one guy who would carry a 1/2 wave ' Ringo ', collapsed of course, and set up on site, with the thing mounted to his towbar via a 6' - 7'mast. He supposedly managed fair distances with that.
ReplyDeleteApart from the obvious repeaters and translators and phone towers dotted across the plateau, it is also home to Shepparton's ONE FM ( community ), STAR FM ( commercial ), and TV. The first tower ( smaller of the two ) you come across if following the road, is exclusively WIN TV, now UHF and with an ERP of 325kw. The furthest and tallest tower houses the ABC, SEVEN, TEN and SBS, all 250kw ERP I believe. It also houses ABC and SBS FM radio. An uncle worked at the ABC tower for decades as a transmitter tech. He was also a ham, VK3AYD, now sadly silent key, and based out of Mooroopna.
I hope this info is of some interest to you.
Best regards,
Mike.
Thanks for the comments Mike, interesting facts about Mt Major. Must revisit it next time I'm in the area.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Ian