New QSL card

My new QSL card design taking some inspiration from Eric Reilly’s 1937 VK4ER QSL card. I shot this photo from my office a few years ago looking down the Brisbane river with the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Museum on the left and Coronation Drive and Treasury Casino on the right.

....and where have I been for the last 2 years?

....well I have not been studying to upgrade my licence, actually I have not been very active on the radio at all. Work, work, and work, makes VK4FLYN a not very active Ham but as usual I keep dusting off the radios and getting on the waves....eventually.

Once again I have a new set of wheels and will setup my trusty Yaesu VX7R in there. This time it's an Alfa Romeo (again) so the install will be pretty much as per the last with the ClipOn bracket and RAM mount RAM-304U. I've been following some of the Japanese radio hams on youtube and this style of install seems to be pretty popular and easily achieved over there with their personal radios (aka low power handheld cbs). https://www.youtube.com/user/hirohiroki0420 

The Alinco HF rig has been sold to pay down some debts but the QRP rig remains and I have made a couple of contacts on it recently.

Updating the mobile shack

Seeing as I just spent nearly $3000 on replacing the gearbox in the mobile money pit I thought it would be a good time to get my radios back into the car - I'm not planning on selling it anytime soon.

Starting with the antennas I am running a Nagoya dualband steel whip for VHF/UHF and an RFI elevated feed whip for UHF CB. The Ford Falcon interior does not have that many flat surfaces to mount radios so I opted to use the centre console as the main spot. With the antennas mounted on the front guards and the cables routed back into the cabin I then started dismantling the dash and centre console to mount the Uniden UH089B UHF CB. It was a mission to not break the stupid plastic clips holding the trim together and in the current heatwave Australia was going through not a very enjoyable experience.

Work in Progress

And with the radio mounted.

The bracket on the left side is the mount for my Yaesu VX7R and the other loose cable is for the GPS. I've just ordered the QYT KT-8900D mini transceiver and expect to slot that in under the Uniden. Hopefully I can make it fit.......

10 watts into Munich with DK8MZ

It took me quite a while to get round to editing and uploading this video but got there in the end.