Saturday, 28 November 2015

Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve VKFF-0855

With a WWFF, VKFF activation weekend planned I chose to activate 2 Canberra Nature Parks on the Saturday, Mulligans Flat in the morning and Goorooyaroo in the afternoon.

Mulligans Flat Nature Reserve is a large park in the North East corner of the Australian Capital Territory, protecting box gum woodland. It even has its own website http://www.mulligansflat.org.au/ It is split by Mulligans Flat Road, with Northern and Southern areas. Map as follows.



Drove down Mulligans Flat Road past Bonner, then turned left into Duke Road. A short distance along the road came to a gate and an entry point for horses into the park. Also used by mountain bike riders to access the Canberra Centenial Trail. Marked as Operating Spot on the map.


Parked and offloaded my gear for a park activation. I knew there was not much of a walk, so took the camping table, chair, car battery and my shack radio for a change, a TS-480. Set up the squid pole on the fence


Radio shack on the table. Just like being at home :)


For a change could actually run a bit of power, kept it to around 40 w output and wound it up to 100 w for difficult contacts, although needed to watch the battery use.

Got on 40 m. Initially found missing NVIS contacts, mainly VK5, VK7 and Northern VK2, nothing from nearby VK3 or even local VK1s...Did improve later in the morning. Remember one contact with VK3ZPF, Peter we could barely copy each other, even on high power, then the band picked up after a few overs to an strong easy copy using low power...

Many hunters and also many parks on air, 19 Park to Park contacts. Parks worked in VK2, VK3, VK4 and VK5. Also a couple on SOTA activations, VK1AI/P on VK1/AC-033 and VK2HRX/P on VK2/CT-007.

Went through to 12:30 pm when I packed up and headed to the next park. 49 contacts so have qualified the park for a change.

Stopped at Forde briefly to see the Southern entrance to the park


From here it is about a 600 m walk to enter the park.


Went on the Forde for lunch, then on to Horse Park Drive to my next park, Goorooyaroo Nature Reserve,

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