A terrific presentation from Icom business Development manager Dan Hill.
The new IC-7300Mk2 was covered in great detail with a demonstration unit on hand. The original IC-7300 has sold in excess of 100,000 units and the new version has some important improvements in both performance and connectivity.
An IC-7760 was shown and demonstrated receiving an IQ recording of a 40m band during a contest.
David, VK3KR, showed a new home brew portable antenna for 2m described in QST in 2018 known as The Hourglass Loop Antenna. The antenna is horizontally polarised and has bidirectional gain close to 7 dBi or about 5dB more than a dipole. Great for SOTA 2m SSB operation.
Later David did a SOTA activation and wrote: “I can report on its performance now – the activation on Mt Gisborne was a success, with 16 contacts in the log, 3 were with VK7 stations. Most reports received were 55 to 59 and I was hearing most of the Field Day activity.
I called VK7DC, David and he alerted his mate VK7VHF, Steve who joined in for a three way contact. We had a 20 minute talk about our stations and the Hourglass, they were interested and wanted to know all about it. Signals across the strait were excellent, as strong as most locals. After that I sent a spot and worked a number of stations in succession, then hunted around for JMFD contacts.
I only moved the antenna direction a couple of times which is markedly different to using a Yagi on a summit.” – VK3KR
HF was very poor with noise from lightning across southern NSW so VHF was probably the best bet.
President Joe outlined the auction of radio gear from SK VK3NE’s shack.
The group then moved to a local cafe for an animated lunch. Another great meeting of the club. Our sincere thanks to Dan for making the trip and bringing all the gear.