Icy Propagation at Mt Donna Buang!

On Thursday July 1, 2010, I went up to the summit of Mt Donna Buang, which at 1280m is the closest snow-sports mountain to Melbourne, 85 away.

 

On this occasion, the snow had arrived a litte earlier than in past seasons, with a good 20cm soft/fluffy cover around the summit.

 

Many Snowmen had been built, with lots of activity for the school holidays!

 

In fact, many of the Snowmen had turned into Icemen, as temperature was down to zero degrees at noon!

 

There was a heavy fog, blocking the normally good Alpine views, but further down the mountain it was sunny.

 

Skiing is not allowed at Donna Buang - the original ski-run built in the 1920s was closed down in later years and became the toboggan run, which was a hive of activity on my trip!

 

Parks Victoria provided free hot food/drinks on July, from a Hot Food Van which had come up from Warburton, 16 km away. This was to celebrate the first day of Free Admission to Victoria's State, Regional, and Metropolitan Parks and Gardens.

 

The road is kept open by snow clearing machinery.

 

I had the Eton E5 receiver with me, and took some time to investigate propagation in the early afternoon, using a Snow Antenna about 5 m long tossed into snow-covered trees.

 

The location is ideal for interfence-free daytime monitoring throughout the year, and this day was nmo exception!

 

The 6 MHz, 7 MHz, and 9 MHz bands were rippling with activity between 0400 and 0500, that's 2pm to 3pm, dominated by longpath signals from Europe, Africa, Middle East and Asia, and shortpath from the Americas.

 

See http://worldisround.com/articles/359838/index.html tor my photos of the trip!

 

Interesting signals on 6 MHz between 0400 and 0500 included:

 

6110 ETHIOPIA R. Farna, Amharic

6140 ROMANIA RRI Romanian

6195 N. ANTILLES NHK via Bonaire, Spanish

 

By 3pm I had to pack up and leave as temperature had droppped to below freezing and snow had started to fall. Without chains, like most other visitors, it doesn't take much snow on the road to cause traction problems, even with 4WD, unless you follow the snow plough!