Blue Mountains... VK2/CT-032, Mount Banks and VK2/CT-043 Mount Tomah (by David VK2NU and Tony VK2WFT 05/June/2017)
Both of these summits are situated off the 'Bells Line of Road', about a 2.5hour drive from home. There is another summit nearby, Mt. Tootie VK2/CT-082, but this is on private property, and we had also run out of time to make any attempt at doing three summits in a day.
VK2/CT-043 Mt. Tomah
This is an easy drive to summit, with a communications tower nearby, in what seems to be a semi residential/rural area. No walking required and we simply pulled off the side of the road and set up on the grass verge next to the communications masts. There is not a lot of room, due to the road and overhead wires (not a great RF friendly location).
As this wasn't the primary activation of the day, we made things short, with 5 QSO's on 40m SSB, before packing up and heading to Mt. Banks.
Equipment was the KX3, LiFePO4 battery, End Fed 40/20/10 antenna on a Haverford 9m pole. This was the first go at using the End Fed, which requires less set-up than the OCF Dipole.
No pictures...sorry
VK2/CT-032, Mount Banks
This was only a 20 min drive from Mt. Tomah, and you can access the trail head by 2WD vehicle, although the road is rough and not paved.
There are two trails to the summit, as shown in the photo. We had planned to take the shorter, more difficult trail up, but somehow got this wrong and took the longer route. The shorter route is a lot more tricky, but the views are worth it. It was a warm day (for the Blue Mountains in June), and I was regretting wearing long pants by the time we reached the top.
Equipment used was KX3 @ 15w, OCF Dipole and LiFePO4 battery.
17 contacts were made on 40m SSB and CW.
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