Active on 50MHz some of the time and HF occasionally - dating back as far as 1967 ! Starting to do a bit on 144MHz SSB plus some FSK441 for meteor scatter work, some PSK31 on HF, who knows what next ????

2007 : Early in 2007, I ran 5 Foundation Licence Coaching Courses under our business name, OzGear, from our shop's premises and in support of Amateur Radio in Australia. I had anticipated doing this after I retired from the work force but it appeared AR needed that resource before that. Very few clubs in the Brisbane area are running courses so are not providing ready venues for newcomers to enter the AR hobby or to attempt assessments.
File Note : ALL of my 'students' over 5 courses held early to mid-2007 passed their assessments.

I currently hold WIA-accredited examiner status and hold papers for most amateur licence grades locally. I also have a practical asessment kit packed and ready to go so could (at least theoretically) provide examinations at fairly short notice.
(Note that there must essentially be 2 WIA assessors present (or an assessor plus a Learning Facilitator) for any theory, regs or practical assessment.).
If you are in the Brisbane South, south-west or near Brisbane areas, Email me with details of your assessment requirements.

I have been approached about running cram course/s here in Brisbane for the Standard or Advanced class licences. If you hold your Foundation and want to upgrade, Email me so that I can gauge if there is enough demand to warrant the development of a course.

I am able to run Foundation coaching courses fairly quickly because I have already developed the course for the one's held earlier in 2007. What I do not have is a local venue (southern Brisbane) to run these ( typically 5 or 6 nights over 2 to 3 weeks)... If you can help then we may be able to start some fresh courses and add more FLs to the VK4 total........ Again, Email me if this is of interest.....

2008 : Who knows ?????

The Icom IC-7400 is a lovely radio and works well as it comes out of the box. With the DSP design, no optional crystal filters are needed and the high stability crystal oscillator and the voice synthesiser are the only options available - and I haven't seen the need for them. The filter in CW mode goes down to 50Hz and I tried separating a couple of close CW stations with it set at that - and it works really well....

When I need just that bit more power than the 100W from the barefoot IC-7400 will provide, I power on the old Yaesu FL-2100B HF linear... Only good for the non-WARC bands ..

I still have an old Icom IC-720A that I power up on occasion - just to keep it functioning !

Antennas :
HF -
. Wilson System 2 triband yagi for 14 / 21 / 28 MHz
. Diamond W-8010 multiband trap dipole set up as an Inverted V for 3.5/7/14/21/28 MHz
PLUS (as of Nov/Dec '07) an add-on trap dipole assembly for the WARC bands at 10, 18 and 24 MHz to make the W-8010 an 8-band antenna ! Construction details here on the web site soon perhaps ????
. A "short" longwire fed via a loading coil to make it possible to achieve an acceptable SWR on top band/160. Very inefficient and rarely used as I am not really interested in 160 metres.

VHF -
. 6 metres - homebrew 6 element yagi
plus a J-pole on the 6m monitoring gear for omni-directional operation
. 2 metres - sidemount dipole for 6m liason channel (145.650MHz in the Brisbane metro area), 11 el 2m horiz yagi for 2m SSB (29/3/08)

UHF -
. 24 el 70cm horiz yagi for SSB (29/3/08)

Icom AH7000 discone on the top of the tower

Includes 50MHz QSOs, HF contests and general contacts.

Note : Replaces earlier full listings of the general plus contest logs

Click on images for larger view.

The tower top is readily visible standing out amongst the houses in my suburban estate.
The top picture was taken in late 2000 after tower and antenna repairs.

The middle picture with clearer skies was taken March 2002. The multi-frequency wire dipole/ inv-V is visible in the lower image, with a balun at the centre and feeder dropping clear of the tower and its cables. By the way, the bird on the boom of the 6 metre beam is a crow, one of many local varieties who make use of the 'bird perch'.
(More often it is kookaburras with maximum number counted on the array of aluminium at any one time : 13)

Oct 2007 : Apart from replacing the inverted-V with the Diamond W-8010 multiband dipole (3.5/7/14/21/28) and the support ropes, nothing much else has changed !

Nov 2007 : Created coaxial traps for 18 & 24 MHz and made the W-8010 into a dipole array that now covers all HF bands: 3.5/7/10/14/18/21/24/28 MHz !

31 Dec 2007 : 10 el 2m "OzGear" yagi (Y10EL144H) added at a height of 8m on a separate mounting pipe.
(Note - the OzGear yagi was originally built by me for sale through our business and was a 'left-over' when we ceased manufacturing antennas at our shopfront premises back in mid 2007.)

29 March 2008 : VHF /UHF antennas updated -

• 2m yagi replaced by a new 11 element version (approx gain: 12.3dBd)
• 24 el for 70cm added (approx gain: 16 dBd)
• both booms approx 5.3m long, based on DL6WU
• T-matched feeds with 1/2 wave coax baluns
• BF988 MESFET masthead preamps added for each band
• 2 x 15m LDF4-50 feeders installed, N female at the top, N male at bottom of the runs.
• Original plans were to feed the preamp supply DC up each coax - until the extra RF losses were measured (about 3dB total), caused by the DC feed RF choke in the amp unit plus the RF choke in the DC power feed at the bottom - no thanks !
• A quick change of plans and a separate multicore power cable was installed and split between the two preamps.
• The "flyleads" are short lengths of low loss RFI 9006 Cellfoil coax with BNC and N connectors on respective ends.
• The aluminium bracing tubes were added to each yagi provide long term mechanical stability.
• The two masthead preamps can be seen in the larger image - with the 2m one above the 70cm one - mounted on the vertical support pipe between the two arrays.
• Raw VSWR of each yagi: 1.05:1 on 144.175 and 1.1:1 on 432.175 (at the yagis, not the bottom end).

Note - the yagi array was being raised on 26th March but the mounting pipe bent where the 32mm upper tube telescoped into the 38mm lower tube as the array was raised to about a 45 degree angle. The result was a damaged 2m yagi boom - which had to be replaced.

A "gin pole" was added to a replacement masting pipe to take the load today (29/3) - and up it went - no worries. When/if it comes down again, the gin pole will have to be re-fitted to avoid the mounting pipe bending. Note that the tubes were/are "galv steel masting pipe" and not water or fencing pipe.