It took over a year to get everything sorted, but we got there in the end.  Thanks Steve (VK3NF) and Mikey jnr (VK3MWP) for your assistance.

Yesterday, 20/02/2023 I broke ground with a test pilot hole using the auger on the tractor.  As we are in the middle of summer I wanted to use the tractor auger to ascertain how dry and/or hard packed the soil is at the moment.  As it turned out, the soil is lightly moist, so I think we should be okay to complete the ~2 meter deep hole this weekend.

At present, only my 80/40 meter dipole has been erected for use.  This has been slung between two massive gum trees, but due to the sloping nature of the ground the feedpoint is only 2-3 meters off the ground.  Nonetheless, it does seem to work reasonably well!

Lots of stuff to sort out:

1. Feeder cable entry into the house - looking at a few different options to ensure that this is all neat, tidy, water proof and vermin proof.
2. Erection of the two antenna towers - yet to 100% determine where I want to put both towers.  One tower needs the support pole 'rebuilt.

Rome wasn't built in one day!

Antennas removed and the tower is down.  Lots and lots of boxes packed.

Seriously looking forward to setting up my radio equipment, towers and antennas at the new QTH.  It is a rural location, with hopefully a very low noise floor and a decent take-off in most directions for HF.  Location is approximately 220 meters above sea level.

I've ended up going with a 5 element yagi for 6 meters from JK Antennas in the USA (https://jkantennas.com/jk65.html)

The antenna arrived yesterday and after receiving the assembly manual from Ken at JK antennas I hope to assemble it and install it onto the tower soon.

Really looking forward to playing around on the 'Magic Band'

Android first, then iOS.

I will post further progress notes as development continues.

Over the weekend I re-wound the balun over a PVC pipe former.  The co-axial cable is held in place with a series of cable ties and has resulted in around 12 turns of RG-213 cable in a nice neat fashion circular and uniform pattern.  As the cable was already terminated and water proofed, I had to be careful and ensure that nothing was disturbed.  Balun will be placed below the yagi and affixed to the stub mast when it goes back up in the air.

Reference URL: http://www.hamuniverse.com/balun.html

The Diamond balun was still OK as were the plastic insulators.  In fact, apart from the traps the antenna was still quite OK - a very good effort considering the amount of time the antenna has been slung outside and subjected to all sorts of weather in Japan, Australia and the UK.  Therefore I went with a 'kit' from Rippletech consisting of two 40 meter traps and new wire radiating elements to allow operation on 40 and 80 meters.

Thus far works a treat, tunes up nicely in the SSB portion of 80 meters and covers almost the entire 40 meters band.