City Of Brisbane Radio Society inc.

GerDay,

 

You may (or may not) know me. My name is Indy and I am VK2XB. I am a semi regular/irregular on the Coral Coast Net.  I am an interstate truck driver, driving a B-Double which is equipped with … I dunno …. 6 transceivers and about 14 different bands I regularly access, and often call into the Coral Coast Net whilst mobileering about for work, but I am very rarely at home. To add to that, I just moved domiciles last week.

 

All this setup is to paint a picture of just how rare it is for me to be able to meet up with other Amateurs “on the road”, let alone at home, but I was truly blessed to have Geoff, VK4GI visit me at home a couple of days ago (Friday).  Because I had just transferred all my junk from the old house to where I am now, it was still all in boxes, spread all over the joint. I hadn’t a clue where anything was, thus visiting proper hospitality upon him was problematic, at best!!!!!  I was barely able to offer him a cup of tea and a yarn, although it didn’t seem to bother him one little bit!

 

We sat in my kitchen area and pontificated on a vast array of topics, from Amateur Radio, electronics right through to politics and a myriad of other things that, being good Hams like we are, we wouldn’t dare discuss “on air”. We discovered that, despite the vast divergence of job descriptions and qualifications (he is highly qualified in many areas and I am the opposite) our views and attitudes are remarkably similar. In other ways our histories weren’t all that dissimilar!

 

I guess we sat there and yarned away, solving the world’s problems as old farts tend to do, for a couple or three hours. I don’t know about Geoff, but I can assure you that I had a marvellous time batting the breeze with him and was immensely impressed with his knowledge, intellect and demeanour. Geoff truly is a good ol’ boy and I would suggest that you could travel many a long day’s march and not find the like.

 

Time marches on and as he is trying to get and visit with a great many Amateurs over vast distances around the country (whilst he still had a leave pass from “She Who Must Be Obeyed”) we had to curtail our discussions after the allotted time, as he was journeying on across the Hay Plains, next, like the lost tribes of Israel!

 

After a “tour” of my reasonably well equipped radio/technology room, we went outside and viewed my extremely rudimentary and totally unimpressive antenna systems. As I have just moved in, they consist of a genuinely random length or wire (somewhere between 60 and 80 Metres long) adjusted for resonance by a remote (outside – at the feedpoint) antenna coupler with a couple of indeterminate lengths of counterpoise for HF, and a couple of verticals for VHF and UHF. You better believe I picked his brains for antenna suggestions, drawing on his vast electrical engineering skills, as well as his many years as a licensed Amateur. You can rest assured that I will incorporate as many of his suggestions into my designs as I possible can – subject to my very limited “home” time.

 

We then went out to my mobile radio shack in my Kenworth T909 which is far more comprehensive and he had a bit of a gander at how I have it all set up. Hopefully he wasn’t too disappointed with the station.

 

He then give me a rundown on his extremely well laid out and engineered camper van

 

Thence the time had come for his departure and he headed out like some wandering gypsy towards the vast blue yonder as he continued his traipising around on the Ham visitation circuit he had set himself.

 

I have to say that I feel truly blessed to have had the opportunity to meet, shake hands and exchange ideas with this very modest, unassuming but wonderful human being that he encapsulates. I didn’t, however, have the presence of mind to take photos, for which I am entirely disappointed in myself.

 

Safe travels, ol’ mate to one of Amateur Radio’s true gentlemen, VK4GI

 

De  VK2XB – Indy