Hepburn Regional Park and that unamed summit near Daylesford

Spare Friday off work, and had some kid pickup duties to attend to so couldn’t stray too far from home, but thought I’d make the most of it, have been home quite a lot lately

That unamed hill near Daylesford

SOTA VK3/VC-032

I’d been putting off going to back to VK3/VC-032 as I thougth it was only worth one point, but is actually four. No rain, but so much water on the ground I could see it flowing down the side of the road where I setup for the day less than 2m below the summit.

Pleasently this time around I could self-spot, so didn’t take too long before the 40m regulars came along, plus a few more which I hadn’t worked before which was nice. Moved up to 20m, called, and called with no response at all. Peter VK3PF asked me to come back down to 40m to work him, which I did, and then ended up having a good chat about his advice from activating so many different summits & parks.

Hepburn Regional Park

WWFF VKFF-0968 POTA VK-0390

Looking around at nearby parks that I haven’t activated, I seen Hepburn Regional Park which has only ever had a handful of activators (and none with POTA). It is split all around Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, but I noticed Mt Franklin was part of the park, and given some extra height and that it had picnic facilities I thought I’d go take a look.

The picnic area was under construction, but it was a very nice open area, with a large grassy area in the middle, and some very large trees that would be easy to use for future antenna shenanigans.

Managed to work VK4MUD park to park, and ZL4NVW activating a summit on 20 & 40m, but both bands were a real battle, also had KG… who I struggled to hear, and was pleasently surprised, as this is the longest phone QSO I’ve ever made.