New D-Star repeater VK4RDW at Gold Coast, Australia.

Click for Danish version

John VK4BJT in August 2011 created a D-Star repeater in Queensland, with the callsign VK4RDW.

Some of the equipment are from danish club EDR Hurup Thy, where OZ7YD Thorvald and OZ1IIO Anker contributed by programming and
configuration together with OZ1LNI Brian and OZ1LN Lasse from D-Star group Esbjerg.

The repeater consists of a TP6000 duplex transmitter-receiver unit, Procom duplexfilter type DPF70 / 6 and Intel D 3GHz computer with sound card.

Repeater and Gateway programs are written by Jonathan G4KLX.

Repeater frequencies are 438.350 MHz TX and RX 432.950 MHz, ie a spacing of 5.4 MHz.

This spacing means that the requirements to the duplexfilter are not as big as in Denmark (2 MHz spacing) and therefore a surplus filter from
a land mobile base station can be reused here.

The repeater is after some weeks of trial operation on 7. October 2011 moved to its final position 400m above sealevel on Wongawallan between
Gold Coast and Brisbane.

The picture below shows the antenna tower left, and duplexfilter and TP6000 right.

The antennacable is brought into the metal cabinet through a lightning protection, and the equipment is powered from a 750VA UPS to protect
against transients on the powerline and to keep the repeater alive by short power outages.



In the tower VK4ZUK Danny.

The antenna (arrow) consists of 2 phased dipoles on top of the 20m high tower.
The antenna will be moved 1.5 m higher up on the 75mm thick aluminum tube.

The picture below shows from repeaterposition heading east towards Surfers Paradise Gold Coast.



The repeater is registered in the ircDDB network and is linked to the Danish reflector.

To achieve QSOs Denmark-Australia it is therefore not necessary to do anything other than key and talk.

Remember the time difference between OZ and VK is 8 hours. When the time is 12.00 noon in OZ it is 20.00 in VK.

In the area are 2 Danish-speaking radio amateurs : VK4LL and VK4BJT.

The picture below shows VK4LL Finn to the left and VK4BJT John to the right.



Below at bottom of tower some of the helping hands :
In white T-shirt Johns son Dan, to the right Bradley and in the back VK4LL Finn,



A website with info about D-Star repeaters in Australia: www.dstar.org.au