Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)Mar 20

We're on our way to #SouthbrookQld for another #HorseEnduranceRide with #BrisbaneWICEN… but so far, the morning has been eventful.

Minor medical issue for me (which I will not go into detail with) before we left, but that seems to be stable for now. Then as we're heading down the highway, we're watching the battery voltage on the car drop down… 11.8V, 11.6V… we roll into #GattonQld with it sitting at 11.2V (with the engine running!).

Yes, we had this checked on Tuesday.

So we're cooling our heels in the Gatton transport museum while we wait for the mechanics there to take a look. Greatfull that they could fit us in at such short notice.

Hopefully, in the words of Willie Nelson, we should be on the road again.

Stuart LonglandJul 1, 2025

Toowoomba Endurance Horse Riders Hip Pocket Challenge

Brisbane WICEN came out to the freezing cold town of Southbrook to assist the Toowoomba Endurance Horse Riders Association in the running of this year's Hip Pocket Challenge. This normally takes place in March, and is usually one of the first events on our calendar, however Cyclone Alfred totally blew any chance of that happening away. So we bundled up our equipment (and ourselves) and headed west for the open plains. We all arrived on the Friday afternoon and set up base. Operations was […]

https://brisbanewicen.org.au/2025/07/01/toowoomba-endurance-horse-riders-hip-pocket-challenge/

Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)Jun 26, 2025

We're about to set off for another #EmergencyCommsExercise at #SouthbrookQld for the #Toowoomba Endurance Horse Riders' Association Hip Pocket Challenge.

This _was_ to take place in March, however #CycloneAlfred was the final word on that… so it got postponed until now. Southbrook is a little south-west of Toowoomba on the high plains… very open to the wind and quite high in altitude. Consequently, I'm grabbing all the warm gear I can lay my hands on. This morning Toowomba region had a overnight minimum of -0.1°C. Sunday is predicted to get down to 5°C (a little warmer).

It'll also be the first event I try out the checkpoint reporter program I released a couple of weeks ago. I've of course packed clipboards and paper forms, so if things go pear shaped with the computing, we have the paperwork to back it up.

There are four rides taking place. Tomorrow afternoon there's a 20km introductory ride: I understand WICEN's not involved in that one officially, but we'll probably use it as a trial run of the software.

Sunday morning we have an 80km, 40km and 20km ride to support.

#BrisbaneAreaWICEN

Stuart Longland (VK4MSL)Mar 21, 2025

We're off again for this year's first #EmergencyCommsExercise. This event is another #HorseEnduranceRide taking place at #KilkivanQld.

First for the year because #CycloneAlfred saw the cancellation of the event at #SouthbrookQld.

I hear we're using 2m FM simplex for this one. Cross-band operation here we come.

#AmateurRadio #BrisbaneWICEN