Blue Mountains Amateur Radio Club

Cameron Corner 2008 Expedition

Joe VK2JP, fulfilled his dream of 4wdriving to Cameron Corner
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Cameron Corner  2008 expedition.

Desert flies have not mutated fast enough to keep up with digital technology.
Time flies. Five years have elapsed to erode a warm memory of equipment
from the 2003 desert trip that had been deployed, digital camera, GPS and 
communication equipment. In 2008  they've all shrunk in size and cost, but not
performance. 
Purpose of the 2008 expedition was aimed at mobile communication both on
80/40 metre bands SSB and digital mode on VHF/UHF .
Mobile communication on HF 40 metre was planned with a half loop ( aligned to
resonated between 7.020 - 7.120 MHz with a Land Cruiser ARB roof rack). When it
was mounted on a trailer (towing car has no mounting point), the loop resonated
frequency was detuned by the horizontal steel bar (part of the trailer's gate).
Now we all understood why commercial half loop is always sold with a roof rack
as part of the antenna system !
 
 

The last ray of desert sun and the ham stick
 

The 40 metre Ham stick's angle of radiation is not high enough to produce an
NVIS effect for a near vertical reflection to cover short distance ( within
700 km radius). For a 1 hop distance it is a brilliant antenna, particularly
when the road is wet, QSOs 5/7 to 5/9 were maintained.
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Mobile communication by VK2JP
 
Mobile communication on VHF/UHF was established with VK2VVV driving an escort
vehicle using DSTAR which magically removed
all QRM, QRN, providing a superb QSO  from Blue Mountains up to Wellington.
 
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VK2SS graciously handling traffic on the 80 metre band
 
Portable Camp Base communication
Two similar rigs were used on HF, perhaps to avoid the culture of " you
interfere with me - your transmitter is lousy, I interfere with you - your
receiver is lousy", same model rigs cancelled the lousy equation.
 Several experiments were done with antenna
comparison, A and B switching between an inverted V and a mobile Ham stick just a few metres away.
No firm conclusion could be made probably due to their mutual coupling.

Crossed Inverted V antenna, 80m and 40m with a single fiberglass squid
pole
 

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QSO
Expedition was kindly supported by several BMARC' members.  A QSO card had been
designed and was issued to QSL'ers.

Sample of QSL card issued
 
Wish List
Antenna foot print is always wet (wet roads and no wet tracks), creating a perfect
reflection to minimise ground loss. We observed a 2 S points differential when
traveling consecutively on wet road and dry road, also when comparing a desert with poor ground to a
well irrigated lawn next to a river bank.
Thank You

VK2JP, vice president of the BMARC, for one seat in his 4WD.
VK2SS, a "professional amateur" for "how to homebrew and
operate an inverted V."
VK2VSV, web master, for pushing me to write this short report.
 
Pascal Nguyen