Australia's - International HF Beacon - VK6RBP
at long last on air at the Roleystone (Perth) site.
The Beacon arrived in Perth during January 1997, 
but has been delayed from becoming operational due to site problems.

These at long last have been sorted out, and as of 
1pm on Sunday the 18th of May 1997, the beacon  was switched on.
Frequencies: 14.100 18.110 21.150 24.930 28.200 
Photo shows Will VK6UU up the 9M (30') Beacon tower, with the R5 muti band antenna above.
The antenna tower is located some 80M (250') from the main tower and site buildings, 
where the beacon transmitter is located.
Trench Digging
 A couple of the workers starting to dig the trench for the 80M (250') of low loss RG 333 Coax between the Beacon transmitter and the antenna. 

In the photo is Cliff VK6LZ on the shovel and Rob VK6TRC on the matic. 

The ground is gravel with the odd rock.  The antenna mast is behind Rob but is washed out in the photo.

Yes a long way to go Rob...! Will let you know when you get there.
The reason for placing the antenna away from the buildings was to prevent interference to the radio equipment in the buildings. 

The antenna was tried attached to our site building but RF found its way into all sorts of equipment. 

 With the antenna 80M (250') away there appears to be no problems. 

The 1.25" RG 333 coax has only about half a dB of loss over the 80M (250') run.
Beacon Equipment
 The Beacon Transmitter is a Kenwood TS 50s shown on the left with SWR meter on top, and the GPS controller on the  right. 

This GPS controller is the brains of the system.

A GPS (Global Positioning System) antenna and receiver is mounted on the roof of the building and from this, very acurate time information is derived. 
This time information is then used to activated the beacon on its correct time slot so as to interface with the other HF Beacons around the World.    In effect the beacon is turned on and controlled by GPS satellites.    A cleaver idea.  The equipment, including antenna, was supplied and paid for by The Northern Californian DX association, who thought of and designed the equipment. 
The Australian organisation responsible for costs such as the licence, import duty and some installation hardware was the WIA (Wireless Institute of Australia). The site installation 
was performed by WARG 
(The West Australian Repeater Group).

Photos taken with Epson PhotoPC 500 Digital camera
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