The Cooltong Conservation Park VKFF-0823 in QF05HT. VK5PE Peter, VK5HS Ivan, VK5FPLR Peter, and I (VK5DW Danny) went out and activated the park for my first activation even.

VK5HS bought along his recently built satellite antenna and rig and played on AO-91.

VK5FPLR also had a play on the satellite as well from his hand held and Ivan’s kit.

I managed to get my quota of contacts and had an absolute blast… gunna do this again!

Check the pic below, looks like VK5PE Pete thinks he can see the satellite and trying to guide Ivan to point his rig in the direction.

Thanks for reading,

VK5DW Danny

VK5LA Andy has got the ball rolling with his take on the Crossed Dual Band Yagi for working the birds.

He runs full duplex and took the lead of VK5HS Ivan mounting the yagi on a stand to make life a bit easier bird chasing.

We’re all doing it… crossed dual band yagis that is.

Here we have VK5HS Ivan version of the 2m/70cm cross yagi for AO-91. Ivan’s design has through boom mounted elements that with a twist of a screw can be removed with reasonable ease. The fixing screws are mounted in by way of ‘Nutserts’ aka ‘Rivnuts’.

He uses 2 x portables for full duplex so when he keys up the 70cm transmitter you can hear yourself coming back in on the 2m receiver, full duplex. This is a little wierd at first but great when you get the hang of it. The best bit is that you can tell when you are getting into the bird.

It is with this outfit that I, VK5DW Danny, got bitten with the satellite bug (you can see me in the pics… I’m the one with the big belly!!!). From here I went home and rigged up a couple old yagis I had laying about. You can also see VK5PE Pete operating the yagi hand held (nice vest Pete). Ivan even bought it out for a bit of fun during our Cooltong Conservation Park activation.