For this event I invited a former work colleague and new licencee, Adan VK1FJAW to participate and learn something about field operations.  Adan operated the 6 metre station during the event and while it was fairly quiet for most of the weekend, he was rewarded with a short sporadic E opening to southern VK4 during the final hour of the event.

Apart from that his role was to carry heavy stuff, help with fuel refills, put up antennas and generally be a keen student, which he did very well!

Operating from Mt Ginini was rewarding as usual.  On the bands, 2m produced a good contact score though conditions were poor in Victoria, reducing activity and stations worked somewhat.  Most of the usual Melbourne area home and portable stations were worked on 2m and 70cm, some stations in the Sydney area, north and southwards of Sydney and a few in the Port Macquarie area were also worked.

Conditions for the higher bands were not good.  Apart from local contacts on 1296, the only exotic contact was with Dale VK1DSH on 10 GHz, made possible by his trek through the bush to a more favourable ridgetop from which he heard us much better and we could also hear him.  Some odd frequency offsets were taking place but I think my handheld fm liaison rig was creating havoc in my own 2m IF rig.  We liaised via the Mt Ginini repeater – for some reason I could get into it quite well, at a distance of about 30 metres.  We had to use a combination of voice and morse to get numbers exchanged to our satisfaction.  Persistence paid off.

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