Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 2010 - HF Comms Coverage Finished

Guys,

We've just shut down the live HF Comms coverage / USTREAM Feeds for the 2010 Sydney Hobart Race.

If I was to give a quick review of how well our broadcasts were, from Brisbane end, my coverage of 6516 khz was fairly poor, due to poor HF Condition during the day.   However this is were having another HF Stream provided by VK2MPJ located near NOWRA, NSW was able to provide most of the time good coverage of the 6516khz (0735 and 1705 AEDT) Position Reports.  But even VK2MPJ had a few times where the HF Conditions did not play nice ;)

However for 4483 khz, I was able to provide great coverage of this frequency especially the 2305 Sked for M2H (East and West Coast Race) and M2L.  Aswell as the 0005 Sked for the S2H.

The ALA-1530 Loop antenna worked a treat as always. However the interference from 6518khz was just a pain in the arse.   Chatting with VK2MPJ I'm keen to test a couple of directional antenna designs such as Hex beam, Moxon and other possible wire beams antenna.   After a lot of research of locating a directional antenna over the last few month prior to the 2010 S2H Race, I found / digested / learnt a stack of info regarding beverages, flag / pennant and EWE antennas.  The main flaw with these antennas is that their directivity is only effective for the low HF / MW bands.  And Since I'm dealing with 6.516 Mhz I need a design that would be directional at this frequency.   So it looks like I have a year to get my act together and see if a Hex, Moxon or yagi (wire beam version) monoband cut /designed for 6516 khz will reduce the interference from 6518 (Voice of People of Korea).

Or I could always hope the Signal 6518 goes off-air or changes frequency :) :)  But since starting the HF coverage of  2007 S2H the 6518 khz has been a pain in the arse and hoping they'd go away each year, just doesn't seem to work.

On another note, it would be great to tee up a couple more people to provide HF and possible VHF coverage of the yacht race.  Its hard to say where exactly would be good, but at a stab in the dark, I would love someone at the following extra locations:

• SE Corner VIC (Lakes Entrance, Sale .....) 
• St Helens (NE Tas)
• Hobart (HF and VHF Coverage)

I've just joined AURFSCAN and they have great forums for "Scanning and other communication" topics and especially appear to have a diverse set of members which may be a great possible means of locating people to give us a hand in providing HF / VHF Comms Coverage for S2H 2011......

Thats All Folks

Mark (AussieDrifter)