RADIOS AND KITES

March 13, 2014

RADIOS & KITES

Here's something a little different! Last weekend, my wife and I left town for a short holiday on the Mornington Peninsula, about 95 km south west of Mount Evelyn. The whole peninsula is a wonderful tourist destination close to Melbourne city and is very popular with both visitors and locals alike, especially during summer. Beautiful bayside and surf beaches, along with attractive inland gardens and wineries are just some of the features noted in this region.

The family kite flying area

By chance, last weekend's visit also coincided with the annual Rosebud Kite Festival. The weather was perfect for these brightly coloured objects as they bobbed about in the sunlight against a cloudless sky. A light onshore breeze was enough to get most kites up in the air easily, and hundreds of people took part in bringing their favourite kites down to the coast. There was also an opportunity to make and decorate your own kite, right there on the spot, and get it up in the air.

Some of the Maxi Kites competing for "air space"!!

Some of the Maxi Kites were simply huge and came in all shapes and sizes! Requiring skilful handling and clever aerodynamic designs, it is no simple feat to keep these giants flying high. Included in the display were huge inflatable kites, single one kites, tetrahedral kites and stunt kites. Kite makers from around Australia and New Zealand participated in the event. There were two areas for flying - the "professional" flyers with their maxi designs, and a family kite flying area as well. The festival began at 11am and by 12:30pm the family area was packed with hundreds of enthusiastic flyers.

So.....what's this got to do with radio? Well, nothing really, except that the local amateur radio club was also in attendance. And they did a fabulous job of promoting ham radio in action. Parked right on the foreshore, the Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club had an excellent display of equipment in operation on all the Australian amateur bands, including Amateur Television.

VK3BSP located right next to Port Phillip Bay.
The big monopole antenna covers 40 through to 10 metres.
Other antennas cover 6 and 2 metres and 70 cm bands.

The group has an amazing setup with a fully self-contained enclosed steel trailer, which unfolds to set up their demonstrations. On the back of the trailer is a pneumatically pumped telescoping mast. Additional antennas can also be mounted on the trailer or on rugged tripods. There were plenty of radios in action, lots of wires running in all directions. And there was even a long wire antenna suspended by a colourful kite (of course!!)

The pneumatic pump gets the monopole up 10 metres high.

It's important for amateur radio to have a public visibility, and the members of this local radio club can be proud of their promotional activities, especially on a day when thousands of holiday makers were in attendance.

The side of the trailer opens out as a display bench. Inside the trailer are lots of leads, parts and equipment.

For the Kite Festival, the hams brought the their own kite connected to a long wire antenna,
which was able to tune most HF bands through an antenna tuning unit.