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6th August 2008 13:54

Alan Yates wrote...

Kim,

Welcome to ham radio! Congratulations on passing your F-call. I have a confession to make - I can't receive CW either - well at least not very well. I am making an effort to learn, but I am progressing rather slowly.

Thanks for the beacon report, I'll add it to the list.

I took a look at the regulations on the ACA website, it appears Foundation calls must use commercially manufactured transmitting equipment. I think that's a pretty terrible regulation, but I suppose it is a good incentive to upgrade to an Unrestricted! Otherwise the only regulation related to beacon operations I could find is the usual requirement to identify at least once every 15 minutes.

My beacon is currently on 3.581 MHz +/- a little for drift. The message was recently slowed to 10 WPM and has a 30 second long solid carrier period between repeats which should make it easily identifiable even if you can't read the call sign. The call is repeated three times "VK2ZAY/B" at the start of the message after the 30 seconds of carrier. It also sends its location to within a few metres and a Maidenhead locator along with an email and URL.

There is no schedule at present, I just turn it on and off manually. I was thinking of putting it on a time switch. I have some plans to use the same antenna for RX, so sharing around the antenna will become a constraint.

If you need polyvaricons or iron powder toroids for the antenna matching unit drop me your postal address in an email and I'll send you some.

Regards,

Alan

5th August 2008 18:21

Kim Hawtin wrote...

Hi Alan,

I forgot to mention that I'm in Mount Barker in South Australia. Just so that you've an idea where I'm listening from.

73,

Kim

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VK5FNET

5th August 2008 18:19

Kim Hawtin wrote...

Hi Alan,

I've been listening to a cw beacon on 3.579Mc for some time. I found your site by searching the frequency and its the only one I can find thats remotely close. Soon when I can actually copy CW I might be able to confirm its your beacon =) I've only been an F-call for a couple of months, there is amazing amount of stuff to learn =)

The only time of day that I've had any success hearing it is in the afternoon, but the noise is quite amazing at the moment.

Do you have a schedule for operation for your beacon?

I have been thinking about doing something similar. I need to figure out if I can on my F-call first, but everything else is applicable to my 80m rig.

I have quite enjoyed reading about your projects. It has certainly inspired me to build a few things and I'm gathering to components to make a 80m endfed halfwave and tuner as reception of the WIA broadcast is quite good on 80m, not so good on 40m.

73,

Kim

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VF5FNET