Graeme, VK3CDO gave the keynote presentation at Saturday’s club meeting at Woodend.
Graeme gave an excellent account of various caves he’s explored and spoke enthusiastically about caves in Tasmania.
Many of us did not know that a true hero was in our midst as we learned that Graeme had been urgently recruited to rescue a boy who had become trapped by a rock fall in a cave in Tasmania.
A surgeon was taken along who was ready to amputate to release the boy but happily that was not necessary.
Tales of squeezing through small openings, swimming under low ceilings and being bitten by weird bugs did not endear the hobby to me but perhaps others would enjoy it more.
Graeme is a skilled photographer and explained how photographs in caves were taken by opening the shutter, blowing a whistle, and having members of the party setting off flashes they held distant from the camera.
mcHF Transceiver
David, VK3DKR, demonstrated a home built QRP transceiver known as the mcHF transceiver.
Although the radio can now be purchased pre-built, David took the more challenging route and purchased the board and did the construction himself. The receiver is excellent and reports of transmissions on SOTA outings are good.
The secret of the excellent reception is that David asked Peter, VK3TPM, to bring along his “RD contest Time Machine”. What we did was use a HackRF to record a slab of a busy 40m band during the recent RD contest and then play back that spectrum next to the radio being demonstrated.