Mt Elliot being the only likely future SOTA summit near Gosford, NSW and being a 5 star easy summit – Drive up, walk a little, lots of area to set up, toilets on site, electric BBQs on site, benches and cover, makes it an ideal test site for equipment to be used on more difficult peaks later.

Here are some photos from the days activities – some pictures of the area, the views and then some radio work – those shown in the pictures are Rod VK2LAX the one looking at information board and in other shots, Dave VK2DLS in a few shots wearing the cap – a new convert to SOTA, he came up to see what it was all about after a conversation with me via the local 2m repeater on the way up and in the last shot myself operating the FT-817 and lightweight version of  a 40m horizontal loop antenna. Please note, although sat near the cars, no power was coming from them, in the spirit of SOTA the rigs are powered either by internal of SLAB batteries. (still waiting in connectors for my Lipo battery).

I am glad to report the tests of the 40m full wavelength loop antenna using lightweight 3m squid poles, mini-tripod supports, very thin, single core, “wire wrapping wire” and a Q-section of  RG-179 coax of the correct length (based on its velocity factor) worked very well indeed. Initially we used my FT-817 at 5W but for a couple of calls after lunch I decided to really test the antenna with 100W from Rod’s FT857 – all worked without issue. as a comparison the a buddy pole “seemed” about 1 S-point down on receive compared to the loop.

Thanks to the following activators for their contacts from this /P site – Wayne VK3WAM/P on VK3/VS-014 & VS-011, Peter VK3ZPF/P on VK3/VN-028, Rik VK3KAN/P on VK3/VE-001, Mark VK3PI on VK3/VC-034,  Paul VK5PAS/P on VK5/SW-011, Brian VK3MCD/P on VK3/VC-001 and Darren VK3FDJT/P on VK3/VN-016.

I have just received a Chinese copy of the “miracle whip” which I intend to test out next weekend also using its ATU with a 40m end-fed and counterpoise, again made with the ultra thin connection wire.