After watching the progress of a predicted evening landing on Tuesday the 29th near Waikerie I called Ivan VK5HS and he was already thinking what I was thinking. This is close enough to do a recovery.
So on Tuesday evening Ivan and I headed off towards Waikerie. Due to Danny VK5DW not having the time or energy (Editor (VK5DW): very funny Pete!!!) to come along with us my wife Nat decided to tag along to see what I was so excited about.
We arrived at Waikerie at about the same time the Sonde launched and parked in a rest stop with some lighting. Ivan and I set up for tracking putting magnetic antennas on the roof and booting the computers up. Within a few minutes we were locked on to the Sonde and ready to roll. I sat in the back seat with all the gear and became the back seat navigator. After getting an update on the landing site I decide to head to Blanchetown and wait on this side of the river and re assess from there thinking the Sonde might land on either side of the river.
After arriving at the Murray River Blanchetown I was confident we could head toward Nottswell the predicted landing site. I chose a route which looked good on the map until we came to an intersection with a set of gates and a house number which made it look like a private road. Not wanting to knock on the door late at night I decided on an alternative route.
After only a few minutes heading North the decision was made to turn around and go back the way we came as the alternative route would require a possible long walk of 3 or 4 kms (Editor: SOFT!!!).
Arriving back at the same set of gates and house driveway as before, on closer inspection one set of gates was actually a public road. As the landing time as getting very close we moved quickly to a position on the road directly under the predicted flight path with about 3 minutes to spare before landing.
We had been tracking the Sonde on a 5/8 wave antenna with good success but now the Sonde was getting very close the Degrees of elevation was increasing rapidly and when it reach about 35 Degrees we lost the signal Ivan had put an antenna switch on the tracking setup so with a quick flick of the switch we change to the Crossed dipole and had the signal again.
I stood outside the car shinning the torch into the sky hoping I might be lucky enough to catch the reflector in the beam Ivan saw a quick flash of light but I was not quick enough to follow it.
Once the Sonde landed we checked the last GPS coordinates which we received at 60m altitude I entered the coordinates into Hema maps on my iphone and plots the location 1.1KM in from the road. Ivan also confirmed the direction with his hand held yagi and portable radio.
All 3 of us headed in the confirmed direction using both tracking methods. We were pretty lucky it was easy walking with very little scrub. We w
ere also lucky it was still transmitting as the paddock was full of small white limestone rocks making it hard to see a small white box among them. Using a good high power torch was great and about 200mtrs from the Sonde we could clearly see the light shining on the reflector. After taking the obligatory photos we headed back to the car. The route back to the cars was slightly longer than the route in due to me not following the GPS and thinking I could just head back the same way See pic. If you get the opportunity to do this I highly recommend it even if you have no technical interest my wife still found it interesting and fun.

Editor (VK5DW): Pete VK5PE on the left is still smiling. Well done you three and great story Pete. Thanks for the contribution.










It was the Riverland Radio Clubs monthly Tech Night tonight which was scheduled for a bring in whatever you want help with night. So Ron VK5MRE and Rob VK5TRM both finished off their take on the
Both antennas tuned up quite well and of course not solely satisfied with just an analyser saying the antenna is good to go, a few on air tests just had to be done to prove the point. So out in the car park of the
Yep sure enough it was there, given we are about 200kms away and on the wrong side of the Mt Lofty Ranges we were getting the Sonde from the SES car park with a hand held antenna with the Sonde at only about 4500m elevation. Yep Rob seemed happy with that.
On Saturday 5th of May I activated another park for WWFF and VKFF.
The Park sign itself is old and dilapidated, I’ve noticed a lot of the South Australian Park signs have been upgraded to nice clear easy to read Green/white signs but this one hasn’t made the grade yet…
Although the signs have long disappeared I’m fairly sure this is one of the designated camping areas in the park. If you do come here to camp overnight or longer, you will need to bring absolutely everything, as there are no facilities here.
After the QSO’s are done you are left with the log for the activation. You can Scroll through and edit any entry with a double click if you need to.






Squid Pole
After a while indications were that we needed to be nearer to Mindarie, indeed a few kms East of Mindarie. So into Mindarie we went then East onto McCabe Rd, Great!!! No internet! Do we rely on Direction Finding (DF) with yagis etc or move back till we find service??? Nope, back to get some internet service, there were simply too much risk of change that we would otherwise miss and render us in the middle of nowhere with respect to the Sonde.
Ok so now we’re out of the car, Ivan with R10 receiver and yagi and I with Boafeng Hand Held Transceiver and yagi, trying to DF the signal. Of course the signal at such close range is quite strong so the signal had to be attenuated somehow. Ivan could use the SSB function and also use the squelch functions. He also used the yagi in horizontal polarisation for further attenuation and ran off the back of the yagi. I used the Boafeng, of course FM only, and progressively de-tuned the frequency to create attenuation, used the yagi in horizontal and off the back. Both methods used by Ivan and myself certainly work well enough for DFing the Sonde.
Taking the ‘bakery’ lead from Mark VK5QI we called into the Loxton Anzac Crescent Deli for our version, ‘Espresso Coffee Thick Shake’. Liquid gold! A great way to wrap up a really fun hunt.