Wall-to-wall CW
The 20-meter band had wall-to-wall CW during the start of the CQ World Wide WPX Contest. This photo capture using KiwiSDR was taken at 18:50 PDT. 40 and 15 meters also had good activity. 10 meters was quiet.
Glenn VA7HC
80-meter phone net
Got on the 80-meter net on Wednesday evening at 1800 hours. Being a mobile operator I found myself a spot up on Beacon Hill.
Garry VA7NV joined me with a nice 5 by 9 signal from Colwood. Dave VE7OU called in from Sooke. I could hear him with quieter 5 by 5 signal; but he couldn’t hear me. Maybe the sun was the problem. Maybe it was my vertical polarized antenna.
However, there were no “maybe’s” about the rag chewing. Good fun all around. One of the joys of HF.
Glenn VA7HC
Brian’s new antenna system
I’m making progress although slower than expected, which I suppose is to be expected….
All the relay switching is in place and functional although I am concerned about the current taken by one particular relay. Two pole double throw relays for handling RF energy are hard to come by these days so I’ll have to live with it and see how it goes.
The matching in the top loaded vertical operation mode for 630/160/80 was done then the tree guy arrived to move one horizontal end up higher which gave me another four or five feet on the vertical. This doesn’t sound much but it made a significant change to the matching. All done now.
Next is the matching for 40 and higher when the antenna is in the horizontal doublet
mode. This will be in the radio room so will be a lot easier. I’ll use my home built VNA to measure the impedance on each band then use an on line calculator to come up with the required L networks.
Brian VE7JKZ