HF Comms Streaming for S2H, M2D and M2H 2014 - Done For another Year

Guys,

This year we had an additional new stream provided by "VK7VKT" (Hobart, TAS). While his signals were not strong at the start of the race, his reception of fleet got stronger as they reached near midway through until Hobart and it was finally great to hear it from the Hobart end of town.

As usually I was not able to offer much in support streaming audio for Sydney To Hobart during the day as the frequencies selected and times for the skeds meant I just was not able to copy them from Queensland. However I was able to stream 4483khz during the night and catch the 0005 #S2H Sked.

"VK3VIM" (Melbourne, VIC) Stream was once again brilliant even though he only streamed 6516khz. We were able to hear most if not all of the 0735, 1205 and 1705 AEDT #S2H skeds via this stream.

This year for Melbourne to Devonport / Hobart, the skeds were run again by "Charleville Radio" (Kordia) on more appropriate frequencies for daytime which I would at most times hear Kordia S9+ and the yachts albeit faint. At night they operated skeds on 6218khz and I was able to copy most of their skeds fine.

I've tried to compile as many of the Skeds audio recordings from each stream as I could and have linked them into my earlier post Australia Ocean Racing S2H, M2D and M2H 2014 - HF Comm Monitoring which contains the list of scheduled Skeds.

There was one very sad incident which the streams capture audio of (Melbourne: listen Hobart: listen ) and that was the Mayday call reporting the Photography Plane crash. See Sail-World news articles for further info:

• Mistraal Mayday report of the downed aircraft
• Sydney Hobart - Report of light plane crash while photographing fleet

Most of the fleet has arrived or nearly all arrived except for Southern Myth whose is near rounding Tasman Island, and Landfall well she's still a fair distance to go.


So even though I've closed the QLD Streams down, I'll monitor the race frequencies and skeds for these 2 vessels until they arrive.

Once again big thanks to Tony "VK7VKT" and Grant "VK3VIM" for providing hardware (Radios, antenna, computer etc), resources (Broadband bandwidth, their time and effort to manage their streams) and I hope to see you both next year.

That's all Folks!!! Have a Happy New Year

Mark (AussieDrifter)