VK4AGD RMS on HF bands in Queensland, Australia

Our previous RMS callsign of VK4GED is now VK4AGD. It is usually on the same frequency as VK4DJC's RMS on 7050.5 kHz dial. With 380 kilometres between us, select whichever station gives your best access to Winlink email.

Antenna-wise, a compact horizontal dipole is strapped to a first floor balcony railing. The dipole is made up of two back-to-back Shark Hamstick mobile whips fed with 50-ohm coax cable, no balun. Sandwiched between a sloping steel roof and railing, the setup works remarkably well. The NNW/SSE radiation pattern suits the radioamateur population along the east coast of northern Australia. It also reaches stations in Mount Isa and New Zealand. When contacting stations in Australia's southern states, we can turn the dipole 20 degrees to favour their direction.

Sometimes the 40 metre dipole uses a shorter Shark mini whip. The mini version fits easier on our balcony amongst the outdoor furniture. There might be about an S-point difference between the standard and mini versions. Having several mobile whips on 40 metres gives the capability for Winlink HF portable.

To check propagation with your station, we can mount a mobile whip on top of a 4.5m telescopic vertical pole to provide an omnidirectional Winlink signal on the 80, 40, 30, 20, 12 or 10 metre bands.

Our RMS comprises a Xiegu G90 transceiver underdriving an RM Italy KL-405V linear amp outputting approximately 100 watts. The linear's integral fan runs continuously to keep it cool, important during long Winlink QSOs.
· Due to QRM from overseas at night particularly on 40 metres, the receiver preamp is on during daylight hours and off at night;
· The AGC is set to Fast to recover quickly from static crashes; and
· The squelch is off.
We use VFO-A for voice, and VFO-B for Winlink - noting that all settings for each mode are retained with the VFO - making it easy to flip back and forth between modes.

The audio interface is a SignaLink USB box connected to a DreamQuest miniPC running RMS Trimode and VARA HF software on Windows 11.

The RMS settings are:
· Mode = VaraHF only.
· Session Timeout = 45 minutes, although unregistered VARA connections are limited to 30 minutes.
· Maximum Daily Usage = 150 minutes.
· Wide channel bandwidth = 2750 Hz, with 500 Hz connections accepted.
· Morse ID = on.
· Service Codes = PUBLIC. Occasionally we may use EMCOMM, WICEN or VK4WICEN.
· Availability = H24, except when testing, software updates or for voice transmission nets*.
Before calling, please check our current VARA HF frequency on https://winlink.org/RMSChannels .

*Parallel voice and Winlink HF nets:
Once a week (on UTC Saturday from 2200Z) our RMS is used for Winlink check-in messages at the same time as the 'VK4 WICEN' SSB voice nets are conducted on HF. Schedules and frequencies are on the VK4 WICEN/EmComms group page at https://groups.io/g/vk4-emcomms .

Hope to see you in the RMS logs. 73 de sysop VK4GED.