.: Spring VHF-UHF Field Days 2010

Mt. Donna Buang - QF22UH. 1250ASL    37°42' 23.88"S 145°40' 55.30"E

After discussing potential contest sites with my mate, he suggested Mt. Donna Buang, the following day we drove up to the summit and did some very basic tests with hand-held portables; mainly assessing what repeaters we could access. Being able to access all the Melbourne repeaters, along with various western district repeaters it was decided this would be my portable site for the upcoming Spring VHF-UHF field days.

This year I had 70cm SSB, along with a 70cm 16 element RFI yagi, which was given to me by Andre, VK3FASW.
As I never had 70cm SSB for the Summer 2010 contest, it was a major improvement in points potential.

Gear for the Spring field day consisted of:
Yaesu FT-847; Yaesu FT-2800M; Yaesu FT-1907.
Cushcraft 10 element (2m); RFI 16 element (70cm); RFI 1/2 Wave Monopole (2m); Nagoya dual-band (70cm).

Conditions during the field day weekend were not stellar by any stretch of the imagination, along I did make quite a few good contacts. One being VK2KRR about an hour to the North of Albury in NSW.
I ended the contest with 1345 points and 179 contacts.

All in all I had a good weekend, and got more contacts then I had expected to, although in comparision with the Summer field days there seemed to be less activity. Although, this was my first go at the Spring field days, it may have been par for course.

Before anyone has aspirations of setting up on Donna Buang, all I can say is - 'Don't bother'. I definately won't be going back there for the Summer field days, as the DSE ranger (at least the one I met), was nothing short of a tool who wanted to exert his authourity and generally give me a hard time. After talking to others throughout the day, they also told me others have had the same trauma when operating from there as well.

Where will I be for the Summer field days?
Good question, I still haven't decided myself at this stage, but have a few possible locations in mind.

73;
VK3FEMT.