Critique Welcomed Mt Coree

[Stevenson Gawen]

Last week I spent an afternoon/evening on the summit of Mt Coree, in the Brindabella Ranges west of Canberra.
The 'primary' point of the trip was a little excursion with some amateur radio friends (it's one of my 'other' hobbies ;-) ) but naturally I took some photos too!

Recent work means you can drive right to the top, which makes it easy, although my current car (a fairly low-slung sedan) only just made it... I had planned on either walking the last bit (!) or getting a lift from one of the others, as last time I was up there, a few years ago, it was well and truly four-wheel-drive only.

(I'd forgotten how far the last bit is - would have been a long walk!)

Became very cold and windy as it got later.

View east over parts of Canberra.


Sun setting...


Light fading...

This one is in a way my favorite I think... although not 100% happy with composition, nor the extent of the blown out area around the sun... oh well!


Sun came out again just as we were leaving...

 

[Pete Askew]

Blimey, that is quite a view and you captured some great shots too.

What transmissions can you send / receive from up there?

 

[Stevenson Gawen]

View, yep, it's one of our better ones!

Transmissions... Ah... how long an answer do you want?
Radio enthusiasts have a bit of a fascination with hills, even though they're only really useful on the shorter wavelengths, on VHF and UHF.
Those frequencies are mostly line-of-sight so in other words, the better the view, the better the range!

But also, there's an international scheme called SOTA or Summits On The Air (link). You get activator points for contacting other amateurs (or "hams") from hill/mountain tops, and the other people get chaser points. The higher the hill the more points you get! It's fun, and gives another side interest and incentive to bush walking, four wheel driving or whatever your preferred means of movement is. I did a quick activation of this one, made 5 contacts with the help of the web-based spotting service that lets people know one's 'on air'. Annoyingly I then lost my log - so I can't submit it for points!