16 April, 2002. 00:01 UTC

On Air At Last!

On air - What you have been waiting for!  Five stations were operational and the first QSO occurred at 10:06 yesterday.  The operating tents are holding up well despite the strong winds and have actually been erected down closer to the beach (compared to last year) to minimise any dramas.

Antenna Work - There will be a major antenna completion exercise today.

1) All SVDA are running as a single-element dipole only in order to get on-air as soon as possible. The director/reflector elements will be added today.

2) Trying to erect the low-bands Battle Creek Special in high winds resulted in some minor damage to this antenna... this will be fixed today and erected.

3) There is a mismatch with the 17m SVDA resulting in a high SWR... this will be investigated today.

4) The 80/40/30 Sigma vertical will go up today.

Buggered! - On top of the longer than expected journey to the reef the team had a very exhausting day yesterday setting up as much equipment as they could to get on air. Trudging through the sand unloading all the equipment has been quite a chore!

On-line Logs - The first upload has occurred and logs are now on-line.  We anticipate being able to update the on-line log twice a day, so keep checking.

Stats - Check out the daily stats and see what has been worked and where!

Picture Gallery - Pictures from Monday April 8 when the team departed Gladstone Marina are now in the Gallery.  Check them out!