ARRLWeb: Ham Radio Challenges on Moreton Island

Reg Hardman VK4XH and Rick Sagers W7YC
rhardman@bigpond.net.au; w7yc@arrl.net

Ferry arriving from Brisbane

Rick Sagers, W7YC, Fort Worth, Texas

Travelling up the beach to Blue Lagoon

Reg VK4XH, working Rick W7YC from the top of Mt. Tempest

Swimming at Blue Lagoon

View from lighthouse

Working Rick W7YC and Don W7YSO on phone patch from lighthouse

Returning to Moreton Island on March 16, 2007 by barge with our 4WD brought back many wonderful memories of previous ham radio exploits some 20 years earlier in the mid 1980s when the 20 meter band was really “in” and much kinder to all hams operating on low power. Where is Moreton Island you may well ask? It is the largest and most distant of the three islands off the coast of Brisbane, Australia (VK4-land) that form the protected area of Moreton Bay.

Today you can take your 4WD with you by barge to Moreton Island from Brisbane in about two hours. It has to be a 4WD vehicle, as the island is a declared reserve and wilderness area composed entirely of sand with no roads. Even so the island is heavily forested with tall trees and brush, indicating that the sand provides all the necessary nutrients for such growth together with a great rainfall. In the first part of the 19th century English ships had released horses, goats and pigs on the island as a resource for shipwrecked sailors. Although most of these animals have been removed, wild pigs remain a problem.

Apart from a series of a few primitive fishing camp sites (where we were heading for the weekend) and a small resort, no one else is permitted to live permanently on the Island, thereby maintaining its primitive, pristine condition. We should state here that Moreton Island is approximately 25 miles long, 9 miles wide (at the widest) and boasts of the highest sand mountain in the world … called Mt Tempest (heavily forested) with a height of just less than 1000 feet, located in the middle of the island. Indeed Mt Tempest was to play an important role in our visit this weekend.

Reg, VK4XH, son Nathan 31 years, grandchildren Mason 8 years and Dallin 3½ years had driven our Mazda 4WD off the barge (after deflating our tires to 15 psi) and headed for our campsite at Blue Lagoon on the easterly side of the Island. Our purpose was for all of us to climb Mt Tempest the next day (Saturday) together, along with my trusty Yaesu VX-5, and access the IRLP node at Mt Tamborine on the mainland around 40 miles away on 2 meters (146.700). I would then call my good friend Rick, W7YC, in Fort Worth, Texas at 0100Z. If workable, Rick was then going to phone patch me through to two Utah hams, Don, W7YSO (Bountiful) and Woody, W7KOP (Provo). Could it work? We didn’t know … but we were going to give it our best shot.

Although we were using a different technology; we were exercising a form of re enactment of an experience we (my son Nathan and I) had had with Don, W7YSO, some 20-plus years earlier in 1986, when we had visited the island and worked Don direct on 20 meters. Operating off the car battery with about 60 watts and setting up a loop antenna in the trees fed by ladder line into a tuner I worked Don in Bountiful, Utah, who phone patched the signal into my mother in law in Layton, Utah. My son Nathan, who was only 10 years old at the time, was able to speak to his grandmother from a very primitive campsite on Moreton Island all the way to Utah … a treasured experience that will always be remembered.

With these thoughts going through my head our Mazda bounced along on a very rough track across the island till we hit the eastern beach where we had a smooth run up the beach to the beautiful fresh water spring of Blue Lagoon. After making camp we decided to drive up to the lighthouse to check out the view from this high northeasterly point. We did so and to my great joy I found that I could access the Mt Tamborine node, and in my excitement I called Rick … momentarily forgetting about Central time USA. Without hesitation Rick came up on the radio at 1 AM Texas time, 4 PM local time. Sorry Rick … it won’t happen again. As always with 2 meters communications was rock solid as we exchanged pleasantries … such as they are at 1 AM.

With this encouragement we traveled back to our campsite at Blue Lagoon to get ready for our big climb the next day. With wonderful weather at 82 degrees F on Saturday March 17, all four of us set out for Mt Tempest, which was about a 25 minute drive through a rough bush track to its base. After commencing our climb the grade became increasingly steeper, and having to negotiate through soft sand made it quite difficult (two steps up and one step back). I was really proud of Dallin our 3½ year old, who, following his older brother’s example, never complained once during the 1½ hour climb. As long as he could hold his father’s hand he climbed up under his own steam with a number of rest spots in between. I should add here that the rest periods were mostly for Grandpa (me) who found the going (and heat) particularly demanding with the increase in blood pressure.

Phew!!! We finally arrived at the top where there was a small plaque and I was able to put my Yaesu VX-5 through its paces. Wow! I was able to access the node at Mt Tamborine 40 miles away at the lowest power level of 300 milliwatts and bring up Rick, W7YC, in Fort Worth. As long as I stayed in one spot communication was rock solid, but if I moved 5 or 6 feet away I had to increase the power level to several watts to get the same effect. However for a HH with a rubber ducky antenna I felt we were doing very well. Rick then phone patched us through to Woody, W7KOP, in Provo, and we had a three way, following which I put my son Nathan on the radio to talk to Woody.

Doing so was like a re-enactment of the experience he had 20 years ago. I should relate an incident I had with my son Nathan at this point. Like many relatives he is very happy to see me get a great deal of satisfaction from ham radio but states “Why do I need to get involved in ham radio when I have a cell phone.” So I asked him to try his cell phone now … and yep you guessed it there was nothing … just out of range. A feeling of justification came over me … even to the point of being a little smug. Yes it’s nice to score with the kids once in a while. Coming down the mountain (although tough on the knees) took a lot less time and we headed out for Blue Lagoon for a swim in its warm fresh water (like a warm bath) and then lunch. As prearranged after lunch we headed up to the lighthouse to contact Rick, W7YC, again and phone patch through to Don, W7YSO in Bountiful. Everything was fine in working Don, although I did have to increase the power to 5 watts on the handheld to maintain rock solid contact.

We had a great feeling of accomplishment on returning to camp in that we had done something different in operating IRLP from Moreton Island with a handheld to the USA. To give the grandkids a different experience that night, we slept on the beach under the stars, lulled to sleep by the pounding surf. Without the presence of artificial light, the brilliance of the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere is truly outstanding and the brightness of the Southern Cross constellation outshining every other star in the immediate vicinity -- an experience we will never forget.

All too soon our morning departure time arrived to drive back to the barge’s embarking point on the island’s west side complete with all our rubbish we generated. There are no rubbish disposal facilities on the island and you are required to carry everything back with you. As the island slogan says … “You have to take everything with you … but you can leave behind the memories.” And we have many of those.

Reg Hardman, VK4XH, was first licensed in 1957 at age 18. He has been very active on the welfare side of ham radio for many years, having installed cyclone watch equipment (tilt-over towers, 3 el Yagis) and trained operators on behalf of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. The preparedness paid off when Cyclone Val his Samoa in 1991, causing death and destruction over a 12 day period. With the collapse of external communications we had the only link with Samoa to the outside world for 14 days through ham radio. His QST article about the event appears in the January 1993 issue.

Rick Sagers, W7YC, has been a licensed amateur for 39 years. He is an electrical engineer and member of the technical staff at Motorola, where he has worked for the past 29 year in the design of two-way radio, vehicle location and cellular base station products.