The 6m Es condx have continued to prevail, but with the Es link extensions to North America favouring more southern latitudes the best DX achieved here has been Norm E51E on Aitutaki Island (Grid BH01) for a new grid.

Unfortunately the 'quiet' local condx that also coincided with the potential for Es extensions across the Pacific over the past week have also ceased, so now it's back to the heavily RX focused operations.

With Field Day just over a week away, I took KJ VK4UH to check out a couple of sites.

The first is high above  Kobble Creek (where I activated in the Spring VHF/UHF Field Day 2012), the second at Mt Mee. Both have huge potential for FD operations, but the Mt Mee site allows for easy access for the trailer mounted tower used by KJ in the VK4IZ activations.

Wow what a welcome surprise. Rod ZL3NW reported Kaz K8KS on 6m (50.095MHz CW) and then worked a couple more.

I started CQn on 50.092MHz CW, and while I didn't hear anything, it was great to see the following report by Mike KF8MY on the KST R2 page

Another step (very small one) towards the DL6WU 1296MHz yagi... mounted the driven element and matching system to the boom. As best I can measure, within 1mm accuracy to being centred.

Now to find some aluminium rod to make the elements and repeat the accuracy!

Turned the Kenwood TL-922 on today and immediately hear a very loud 'BANG', followed by an immediate loss of power.... and a few choice words!

A check and one of the 15amp fuses had 'evaporated'. Replaced fuse, turned power back on and the amp came to life. A quick test TX, and no output. Input was returning a high SWR on all bands, shutting the FT-1000MP TX down completely.

Opening up the covers revealed (besides a lot of dust) a molten filament choke [very bottom of pic and centre].

Fortunately, a few years ago Graeme VK4FI had given me one "just in case".  A quick trip to the workshop, the dust blown away with compressed air and replacement of the choke was completed. Returned to radio room, powered up, test TX... no high SWR, and amp tuned for full output once again.

It's feeling like just baby steps are being made towards the install of the 144, 432 and 1296MHz yagis, but as each stage gets ' ticked off' the project completion gets a step closer (funny that!)

Today's focus was measuring and cutting three lengths of LDF4-50 coax for the main coax runs up the tower.

And then fitting the connectors.

A little more progress made on the first of the DL6WU 36 element 1,296MHz yagis.  The 19.2mm square section boom drilled with pilot holes for the elements.

And the driven element mounting finalised, with 13mm spaces made, and the positioning finalised.

The UX-910 arrived today from California.. installed in the ICOM IC-910H and running.

Now I just need to complete the 35 element DL6WU yagi for 1296MHz so I can operate!