VK/ZL 600m news

Activity on 600m has picked up considerably across the Tasman Sea in the last few weeks.

In addition to the half dozen active ZL stations, there is now an experimental station AX2VKW operating from Melbourne. Other VKs are also considering applying for permits.

In New Zealand all Amateurs have had permission to use 505 to 515kHz since 1st March 2010, with a power limit of 25W EIRP and bandwidth limit of 200Hz. No restriction is made on the type of emission. The situation in Australia is different, where operation is limited to scientific licences granted to the Wireless Institute of Australia, and allocated by them. The first of these stations is a CW beacon operated from Melbourne.

There are several local frequency-agile 'grabbers' (combination of SSB receiver and spectrogram software, with images posted on the internet), and some of these have been monitoring the 600m band. Of these, the VK2DDI grabber seems the most successful. Last Sunday evening three ZL stations, ZL1EE, ZL3EE and ZL4MD were spotted on the same grabber image, along with the VK beacon. All four stations were also easily audible throughout New Zealand.

Within New Zealand, there have been several two-way QSOs on 600m, but so far there have been no trans-Tasman QSOs. There have been experimental transmissions from ZL using data modes, and a new MSK63 mode developed by Con ZL2AFP and transmitted by Murray ZL1BPU has been received successfully by David VK2DDI.

It is hoped that the new MSK software, which includes Forward Error Correction, and designed specifically for 500kHz, will be released soon. The software requires a sound card and SSB exciter. It uses very little bandwidth, but unlike PSK31, does not require a linear amplifier.

Reported by Murray Greenman ZL1BPU/ZL1EE

73, Murray