WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Im getting something on that frequency.Signal is about 2 out of 10 but strength is about 5 out of 10 and readable.Im in Balcatta Perth.Hope it helps.

allycat wrote:Im getting something on that frequency.Signal is about 2 out of 10 but strength is about 5 out of 10 and readable.Im in Balcatta Perth.Hope it helps.

Awesome - hopefully you're getting a recording of people's voices and stuff. Are you using a handheld scanner indoors, or an antenna on the roof of your house?

S5 with my FT7800 and high-gain antenna up high in Ballajura.

Awesome - hopefully you're getting a recording of people's voices and stuff. Are you using a handheld scanner indoors, or an antenna on the roof of your house?[/quote]

Indoor Uniden 396t scanner with a discone ontop 2 story building.

Weak signal at my QTH in Beechboro but that site has always been difficult here. (I assume its using the old VK6BBS antenna?)

We need VK6RIB mark II for the northern suburbs

It has its own 3dBi antenna. BBS is still on air.

vk6hgr wrote:Weak signal at my QTH in Beechboro but that site has always been difficult here. (I assume its using the old VK6BBS antenna?)

We need VK6RIB mark II for the northern suburbs

Hey it's hard enough getting one site up and running, never mind two!

Martin's right, it's running off a basic 3dBi omni, mounted on the VHF Group's mast up at Wireless Hill. (It's actually upside down from the crow's nest so as not to get in the way of any of the beams that are mounted further up.) Output is still only around 10W.

If you know where to look, it's just visible on this picture (taken from the VI6VIP special event callsign entry on qrz.com)



Since one of the ideas for the beacon is to provide information to visitors, I've been playing around with my handheld this morning seeing what I can reach and from where. From Mirrabooka, standing out in the shopping centre car park, it's around S2-S3... readable but weak. Driving down the freeway it cuts in and out (this is a handheld inside a vehicle, no special antennas or anything). It's readable but weak in at the western side of the CBD. If you stand in just the right spot near the new Perth Arena you can get a readable signal. Move 5 metres sideways and it disappears...

It was audible but scratchy in the dips today during a drive along Ocean Reef Rd, heading east from the marina to Wanneroo Rd.

Wasn't reachable for me driving through Welshpool / Queens Park area, further north I started picking it up more.

In car scanner with 4.5dB external antenna.

When driving back from Wireless Hill on Wednesday 10th Oct, with yaesu vx-170 in the car I could hear the VK6RIB beacon most of the way home (via the freeway) somtimes it dropped out for a second here and there but it was mostly readable on the trip home to Edgewater

I had backed off the mute to level 0 on the VX-170 before I left wireless hill, so this had helped.

VK6RIB signal into Joondalup is usually S1 to S3 depending where you are, in the lakeside shops there is no coverage what so ever, but this is to be expected as all repeaters (appart from VK6RNC 2m and VK6RNA on 438.725 / 433.725 ) are not accessable there.

The VK6BBS packet system is not being affected by vk6rib transmissions where the antenna is located at this time, if the vk6rib antenna was to be shifted there may be some problems unless some filtering was done to vk6bbs and the tx of vk6rib.

Cheers Eddie
VK6YA / VK6ZSE

For those who have not seen it, and are interested, here is a bad phone camera image taken yesterday of VK6BBS on the left and VK6RIB in the rack on the right.





Phil VK6ADF