Team work – from left to right: Geoff VK2TGO, Richard VK2ARH, Greg VK2XE

A working bee had been called in at the last business meeting principally to service the aerials to be held Saturday 28-Mar-2026. As a storm hit Sydney few days before the working bee, it was also an opportunity to work on the grounds.

Just a recap of what we were able to get done earlier today:

  • The large tree that had come across the fence was cleared off the fence and deconstructed to a point. Some of the tree was pulled out and is now in several piles ready for re-release into the atmosphere (Tim) or possibly fed to a shredder. If anyone is so willing, some of it could be fashioned into firewood for winter. 
Lucky no one was using the path at the time, and no antennas damaged.
Simon VK2YU dealing with some other tree issues at the east end.
  • 40m dipole was removed off the squid pole, ropes replaced and hauled into a willing tree. 40m is operational but will need a little further tlc in the form of a balun and a good waterproofing. 
  • 80m balun was found to be faulty while cutting new wires. The wires were partly tuned (resonates on 3.1 MHz) and left in a temp position without a balun. Wires will be repositioned, a new balun installed and given its final tune later.
Greg VK2XE checks the 80m dipole on the nanoVNA, and it’s not a pretty sight
  • The WARC antenna was not put up as this will go up on the same rope as the 80m when we get it completely sorted.  

Greg VK2XE will organise the new baluns. 

  • Richard did some work on the KiwiSDR and concluded it’s most likely an antenna or length of feedline issue causing it to be a little down. We may possibly look to reposition and shorten the coax run if possible. And while the overall cable length was too long, it was not quite long enough to comfortably reach the KiwiSDR in the rack, so an extension cable had been added. Removed it again, just to take it out of the equation, which improved the SNR and SWR slightly. Still, we need a close location for the Kiwi’s antenna.
  • Craig did an update on the Mesh Corenode to bring it up to the latest version. 
  • Most importantly a plate of chocolate cake was polished off. 👍👍 Pass a big MWRS thank you to the chef Alex please Sean. 
Spreading the wires
“Don’t cut the RED wire!”

Thanks to those that were able to attend this morning. We fortunately had some reasonable weather to work with which was nice. 

  • Andy VK2EAH
  • Clifford VK2CLF
  • Craig VK2BTQ
  • Geoff VK2TGO
  • Greg VK2XE
  • Jeff VK2MZZ
  • Richard VK2ARH
  • Richard VK2SKY
  • Sean VK2THT
  • Simon VK2YU
  • Tom VK2TOK

Hopefully we haven’t missed anyone.