Australian CB Mountain Radio Challenge

The excellent, US-based Amateur Radio Newsline rarely report on 11 meter events, however, here's one where it is legal to make DX contacts and it's even an organized happening. The reason is that it's in Australia where it seems that the CB rules permit this kind of activity.

The Mountain Radio Challenge is the CB Radio event in question. It began around 1980 with CB'ers in the North Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne who would find mountains to camp on for the night and see what distances could be achieved on the 27 MHz band using ground wave.

The concept was that anyone could talk skip interstate or
overseas, but to talk long distance without skip was a challenge.

The Mountain Radio Challenge continues to be held each year on Australian High Frequency CB Channel Ch 27. That translates into 27.275MHz on upper sideband. There's also FM activity on the Australian UHF CB Calling frequency of 477.075MHz.

More information on the Mountain Radio Challenge is on the web at www.mrc.cat.net.au

Source: ARNewsline, WIA News, VK-VHF List