The Caboolture Radio Club (VK4QD) in Queensland, Australia, is now operating a beacon on 2200 meters on 137.444 kHz using the call sign VK4RBC.
Australia’s telecommunications authority ACMA has granted permission for continuous operation of the beacon, using WSPR2 (6H00F1D), plus a CW identifier.
The power is 1 W EIRP into a 500-meter (1,640-foot) wire at a maximum of 40 meters (131 feet). Located in grid square QG62lw, the VK4RBC beacon also receives, which is unusual for a beacon, and it has copied signals from WH2XND (operated by Ron Douglass, NI7J) in Arizona. In the gaps between transmissions, it will report all WSPR decodes to WSPRnet.
Equipment is an Icom IC-718 transceiver and Monitor Sensors TVTR2 2200-meter transverter running 50 W TPO. This is the first Australian beacon that has been granted permission to operate below 28 MHz. “With WH2XND also reliable, we will now see exactly how good the path from USA to VK really is on 2200 meters,” Caboolture Radio Club President Roger Crofts, VK4YB, remarked in a news release.
