Well I am up to three HF contacts now, two with Slovenia and the third with one of the 14th Antarctic Activity Week special even station. My tatty fan dipole seems to work ok. At this rate (4 QSOs ever since just before Christmas 2016) I'll soon need a logging programme to cope with this high load... hmmm.
Continue reading...Well I made my first 20m contact today - with a special even station in Slovenia no less. Very quick contact, 5/9 each way. But this is on my loft crude wet-string (fan dipole) antenna with 10 watts. Not too bad for a first contact I think... 871 miles.
Continue reading...I added a 20m dipole to the loft fan dipole today, and fixed the leg of the 6m wire that pulled out of its crimp eyelet. I have yet to cut the coax and insert a coupler so I can use the VNA, so I installed it and hoped. The VNA gave it a SWR of just over 3 and the FT450D tuner is happy at that. But the band is absolutely dead!
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