About Me
My interest in ham radio started over 50 years ago. A friend and the brother of another friend where both involved with ham radio, at different levels though. A first radio with crystals for fixed frequencies and a few watts output was the first exposure. I did not follow through with a license at the time for several reasons and other priorities.
After finishing high school I was serving my compulsory military duty. I did this in a technical unit for communication where amongst other things I learned Morse code up to a reasonable speed of 120 characters a minute, which allowed for some privileges in the service. My university degree in Electronics and Informatics extended this skill set. However, I still had other priorities in my life than getting a ham radio license.
It took until I was 15 years into our life in Australia and I had learned kite surfing, which is great fun and still one of my favorite activities. I do not really recall the exact moment or reason when and why the idea came back to finally get my ham radio license, but sometime in 2009 I decided to finally sit the exam for the advanced license. We had a short diving holiday before the exam and I used a few evenings to refresh my knowledge and go through the syllabus and specifically the regulations. I got the license at my first attempt, however, it was nice not to have to do the Morse test, because I was and still am a bit rusty with my CW, but working on it. I also have the call sign VK6XX, which I recently acquired and intend to use solely on HF and also contesting. It is easier to read I presume than my original call sign.
Up to now my main interest is mobile communication using HF, Vhf and Uhf, however, digital modes and special activities are on the cards as soon as I have finished my current project (our caravan) and started travelling through Australia for the next years. I will occasionally extend this site with information about projects and activities, which may be of interest to other hams and are not readily available on the web. I enjoy building electronic components and other things and also like 4wd, photography, motorcycles, travelling, scuba diving and did I say kite surfing, grin. My wife and I plan to do a lot of cycling, hiking and maybe also some paddling, however at the moment we only have one sea kayak.
73s
VK6GMD/VK6XX
Some of my activities and hobbies
Two images from one of our various dive trips in Europe, Australia and Indonesia. The right picture shows a miniature sea horse only a few mm tall. The left is a "fish cleaning station". Both in around 35m depth. I do enjoy under water photography a lot and hope to get back to it after Covid.
Going bush in my truck is a lot of fun at times. Been to Warren beach, the Power Line track, the track from Augusta to Pemberton along the coast and several more. My wife does not really share this hobby that much though.
I have done a lot of studio work, like commercial, portrait, wedding and catalogue work, including design, type setting and print ready proofing. What I enjoyed most is a combination of photo- and computer art.
One of my passions is motorbike riding in the Alpes. Some years ago I have done 10,000 ks over 50 mountains with more than 6000 hair pin curves. The picture shows me at passo Stelvio in Italy.
More than a hobby really is the built of our gooseneck caravan. I designed it in CAD and built it from scratch including a electronic management and control system based on Arduino components, which I also developed and built myself.
And last but not least my rolling shack. This is a picture of the roof console in my truck, which I recently completed. The trigger was that I had to include an air system for the air brakes in the caravan with several gauges, switches and lights and ran out of space. So I had to re-organise the cabin of the truck. More at another place and time.