What is the CB Radio Mountain Radio Challenge

The MRC, or Mountain Radio Challenge, started around 1980 by Tony and a group of aussie cb radio operators in Victoria.


The idea was to see what distance could be achieved, on 27MHz CB Radio using ground wave.

It was common to talk interstate or overseas when the skip was running, but to get decent distance without skip was a challenge.

As both HF CB radio communications and UHF CB Radio is used it is sometimes a difficult task to make the connection to pass the code message. Generally standard CB radios are used with 12 Watts on HF on LSB and 5 watts on UHF FM, but sometimes a bit more power is used I suspect.

Take into account that these stations are usually operating away from mobiles/vehicles in the bush on top of mountains so power supply is an issue. It is damn hard to back pack a portable 240VAC petrol driven generator or even a 12v HD Car Battery to some places!

 

I am promoting this CB Radio based activity as I had taken part in a similar UHF CB Mountain top contact experiment earlier on in the mid 70’s with a group of CB’ers.

I was on top of the Grampians Mountains in Western Victoria after lugging all the radios, antennas and associated equipment up a bitumen fire access road for a kilometer to the peak.

Too bad I found out later that my best friend from where I grew up in the area was the region CFA captain that has the keys to open the barrier gate and I could have driven to the top!

Pics soon. I have tentative plans to activate Mt Leural at Colac as shown with my brother a full call doing a SODA, but not sure yet so will see.

SAMSUNG SAMSUNG

 

 

Meanwhile go to the MRC Website from the bottom link and join in the fun.

Facebook
[email protected]
Skype:Tony355
MRC 2013 thread on aurfscan group

UPDATE:-

Well unfortunately my brother who has the Van and Power mobile HF DX setup was ill with the very bad flu that has been going around in Melbourne for a while now. So that put an end to that.

So I participated by staying at home in Portarlington and communicating with whom I could hear on CH#26 on HF CB & UHF CB.

Surprisingly made some good contacts with the following involved stations:-

  • 17:27  MRC 06        Jason on Mt. Worth –         R5/S1     HF
  • 17:15  MRC 01        George   Carrum Downs    R5/S5     UHF
  • 17:30  MRC 05        ?             Mt. Hickey            R3/S1     HF
  • 17:40  MRC 071       Larry      Frankston Nth      R3/S1     UHF
  • 17:41  Tweed Radio 299        Darwin                R5/S3     HF
  • 17:42  MRC 071        Larry     Frankston Nth      R5/S3      HF
  • 17:48  MRC 06          ?            ?                 SWL R4/S0      UHF
  • 17:55  MRC 06          ?            ?                         R5/S7       HF
  • 19:10  MRC 05          ?             Mt Hickey           R5/S1        UHF

AND More later on as well but did not log them unfortunately.

I believe that the message was successfully passed and the day deemed a great job by all concerned.

Why dont you join in next year in NOV 2014!?

More info on the new website here: http://mountainradiochallenge.weebly.com/

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