:
Stuie
VK8NSB - Amateur Radio Operator
G'day from Darwin, Northern
Territory, Australia (Outback Australia).
Stuie here to tell you a little
bit about myself and my hobby, Amateur Radio. I have been a licenced Amateur
(Ham) Radio Operator since Oct 1993 and have always had the callsign VK8NSB.
I am currently a Standard Class Amateur Radio Operator in Australia &
38 yrs young (as of Nov 08), married to Rachel (XYL) & have two kids,
Ashley, 5yr old boy & Jamie-Leigh, 3yr old girl. The XYL & I purchased
our own home in Oct 2004 in the northern suburb of Darwin (Leanyer), &
is a nice sized 3 bedroom home with a very large backyard (great for my
hobby) and a great size work (antenna building) shed with a 4th room that
I had built on for my Radio Shack & XYL's computing and work.
Transcievers in the Radio Shack consist of :
HF Radio's ... Yaesu FT-767GX
, Yaesu FT-890, Yaesu FT 897D & FT857D for the Car.
VHF Radio's.. Icom ID-800H
D-Star Dualbander & Yaesu's 767GX & 897D
Phillips FM93 -
APRS (See Comments below)
TX3000 UHF CB ( Local Comms
)
Amateur Equipment on 24/7 :
DXCLUSTER
APRS
(Packet) Running a Phillips FM93 on 145:175 FM.
I-Gate - VK8NSB-5, Digi-Repeater
VK8NSB-1 & DX cluster (info below) VK8NSB-7 Operating 24/7.
This system is owned &
looked after by myself & Simon VK8ZJZ who is a Linux guru & looks
after & is teaching me the system.
Darwin DXCluster (VK8NSB-7) on Telnet at : vk8nsb.shacknet.nu:7300
Antennas at the Shack :
I currently have 3 Towers up in the Air :
Tower 1 is 18m high : Antenna's on this tower are 80m & 40m 1/2wave Dipoles (up at 17m high) a 6 element Dualband long-spaced Yagi, (Werner Wulf design) 3 ele for each 15m & 10m (Rotor - Kenpro KR400) & on APRS a 2m/70cm dual band MBL whip, also have 6db vertical for UHF CB.
Tower 2 is 15m high : Antenna's on this tower are 3 ele Mono yagi for 20m (Rotor - Kenpro KR400), GP3 2m/70cm Base vertical & a Discone Ant for the netset scanner.
Tower 3 is 7m high : Currently only have 1/4 wave vertical for 6m on this tower.
Antenna's on roof of house :
1. 6m telescopic pole with 1 x 10 element 2m high-gain yagi & 13 element 70cm yagi (used for SATTS) Rotor is Yaesu G5500 AZ/EL system.
2. Coman 9 band vertical (on Carport roof) with 20m/15m radials - Used on FT890 for listening.
Bands
& Modes I am Active on:
As a Standard Class licence
in VK I am allowed to operate on 80m,40m,20m,15m,10m,6m, 2m & 70cm
& 3 GHZ bands (1.2,.2..4 & 5.6) with all modes. Power allowed is
100w. I am not allowed to operate on 160m or any of the WARC Bands until
I have done more theory. I am not interested in doing the extra study at
present as I enjoy what bands & modes I have now. The mode I enjoy
most and I am most active on is CW, I have two Keyers, 1 is a Squeeze EK-150
& other is Hi-Mound. I also injoy Digital modes like PSK31,SSTV &
RTTY using MixW 2.18 & MMSSTV. I am starting to experiment with other
modes like Hell & Amtor also. I have always had a interest in Satellites
& with the changes to the VK Licence I am now allowed to use those
Freq's and now that I have my 2m/70cm yagi's up with a AZ/EL rotor I have
had alot of fun working the Birds in Space.
Computors in the Shack:
I Currently have 4 Computors in the Shack, 1 for my SSTV station (currently off air), 1 for the APRS & DXCLUSTER, 1 for the Logging Program (Logger V 8.9 - old I know but I like it and it works) & Digital Mode software, eg : MMSSTV & MixW connected to the FT 767GX & one PC for the XYL for general Internet & games. All the PC's are networked & running ADSL (with 2.4Ghz wireless) Internet. (also now have a Sony laptop - use for work / games - XYL use's this one inside the house )
What I enjoy the most about Amateur Radio:
It would have to be CW, does not matter what band (15m if I had to choose), just having a QSO using Morse Code is great. Lately I have become more and more interested in Digital modes eg: PSK31,RTTY & SSTV, and enjoy doing these modes on HF. I am slowly learning and using the Satellites more. Main Dx Chasing interest would have to be IOTA, just love chasing Islands from around the world & yep, I'm a DXCC Chaser as well. I am always interested in a chat so if you hear me, please say G'day. I have just got on 6m and just worked my 1st season on the magic band with my Vertical & 100w. I worked 23 stations over Dec / Jan 07-08 including 2 ZL's & 3 JA's. I will be listening on 6m from now on when the band opens up.
Past, Present & Future Operations:
I have been to 3 Northern Territory Islands (VK8) over the last 15 years licenced as a Amateur & operated from these 3 Islands.
Groote Eylandt OC-141 (4 visits)
Melville Island OC-173 (2
visits)
Croker Island OC-229
(1 visit)
With the change's in VK with what bands / modes I am now allowed I am looking at operating in 2009/10 from OC's 173,229 & 185. Currently just waiting for the bands to pick up, permissions for these islands has been sought and approval has been granted to operate Amateur Radio on these remote Northern Territory Islands.
Over the last 15 years I have been involved with many Special event Radio Stations, such as:
** VI8NTD - VI75RAAF - VI8TRACY - VI8LH - VI8NT - AX8NSB **
Have also been active in DXCC Locations such as:
JAPAN, NEW ZEALAND, GERMANY, ENGLAND, DENMARK & THE U.S.A.
Countries I have Visited / Worked in but have not operated from :
East Timor,Indonesia,Thailand,Singapore,Brunei,Maldives,Taiwan,France,Sweden,Belguim,
Nepal,Iraq and Kuwait.
MY
QSL MANAGER IS - NEIL VK6NE (BURO
OR DIRECT)
I am no longer interested in QSL Cards. I am not registered with E-QSL so please don't send E-QSL. I forward my logs to Neil VK6NE monthly.
LINKS & PHOTO'S :
vk8nsb@hotmail.com
73,s DE VK8NSB