Welcome to the home page of VK3HOP, QF21

Mobilizing the Car

And so it came to pass that after a string of near misses on my motorbike (from behind) I took umbrage to my fellow motorist attempting to wipe me out and purchased a car. So now I can officially say that I am a retired daily rider but the sentiment is still there and I take my Honda out for a blast on the weekends.

Unlike the Shack Site this section will grow more slowly as I need the shack to be finished as it will also be my study area and if I don't keep studying then I am nobody.

Now where was I..? Ahh yes. The Wagen, a VolksWagen Golf TDI 1.9 to be precise and the best car I have owned to date. Seriously I grew up in a Toyota Crown / Cressida household and to be honest this car is just so good to drive, I don't get sore twitchy legs in the Golf which is a first for me, the fuel economy is just awesome and the six speed DSG is just fantastic. I could keep going on but enough talk about cars..

Lets talk radio's!

Weekend of 26-Sept-2009

A Car with no seams.

So it seems the Germans have built a car with no seams around the tail gate, which is just so cool but in retrospect it is just so uncool for antennas as I can't use one of those lip-clamps you see on other vehicles.

This is the tailgate of my Golf, as you can see there are no lips / seams to clamp an antenna mount to.

If there is one thing I am not going to do and that is drill holes in the outer skin of this car so the only options I have are:

Use a magnetic mount.
Buy a roof rack.

I chose option two and called in to see these people, Roof Carrier Systems in Camberwell, Melbourne and got a standard sort of rack fitted with no fuss and bother what so ever.

This is a standard 75Kg Thule roof rack for the Golf.

Anyway I got the rack fitted and I will use the rear rack to mount the antenna on, which will save a whole lot of hassles in the long run.

How big is your antenna?

So what has prompted all of this..? Well GGREC is going to run a news broadcast on Wednesdays and its the same night that I have German classes and I would like to be able to listen to it as I am going home.. Also I am seriously thinking about taking a 2WD drive tour around Australia or at least West then Up and perhaps diagonally back to Melbourne in the future so a Radio will be a must for that.

But the question remains, which radio's and what antennas?

So far I think I am looking at something Yaesu perhaps a YAESU - FT-857D with perhaps:

A Diamond NR-770HSP for 2m & 70cm (As I already have an unused one.)
A FAMPARC Whip For mobile hf, apparently they like a good whipping down that way..

Then perhaps for stationery:

My Buddipole on a painters pole.
A tuner and long bit of wire and a squid pole.

Who knows.. Decisions decisions.

Whatever happens, I want this installation to look reasonable inside and out, see you for now!