Shack at 02/05/14

Shack at 02/05/14

Thursday 14 April 2011

Now that's better!. had a re think about the 4 metre handy yesterday. Considered a j pole ant that i'd seen in the emporium, but after doing a wiki on same decided there was too much metal work around the fixing point here, apparently the j pole would not be over impressed with that.

Decided on plan B. Home brew dipole. Found an old telescopic fishing pole in the shed to support the wire elements. Taped some wire either side of a chocky block and proceeded to to trim until the swr and impedence became respectable. Started at exactly a metre on each element, but must have ended up taking a couple of inches from that. Unfortunately i forgot to note the resulting length before i taped a the whole thing up propper and erected the pole.

The feeder, indidentally, had to approach the feed point at an angle rather than neatly up the pole to achieve 50 ohms.

Back in the shack i eventually heard a station calling cq loud and clear on 70.45, where on the previous quarter wave, was way down in the noise. Good start. Returned his call and imediately he came back and gave me a 5&7. Nice one!. The ant was a success. My audio was a bit quiet apparently, as has been confirmed by other station since. There doesn't seem to be any mic gain facility etc in the menus, so have to live with it i guess. Still, we are up and running on 4.

Tuned in the the regular net run by a station near Wareham (20:30 Wednesday 70 .475 mhz), which is a fare lick from me. Worse, there is the New Forest between us. I did read a lot of the Wareham stations overs however, but could not make out his complete call sign. What with not hearing the other stations on net either i didn't think it worth attempting to make contact.

Sunday 10 April 2011

Mmmmm, i'm not impressed. Heard a station calling cq on 4 metres today on my scanner+discone.
Signal loud and clear, no problem. Turned on the Wouxun handy and the signal was very scratchy. Tried to answer him and got no answer using the metal roof mounted quarter wave magmount or using the handy outside with the centre loaded whip on board.

G0AYZ is located in Gosport which is about 12 miles directly across the water from my location, so i did expect my 5 watts to at least attract his attention. Apparently not, so not very chuffed at the moment. I'm sure 2 metres would have been a doddle with 5 watts but maybe 4 metres is a whole new ball game propogation wise, i don't know.
Operational on 10 fm now using an AnyTone AT-5555 12 watts into a temporary quarter wave whip on tri magmount on metal shack roof. had 1 qso to date (I.O.W). Heard one more station but cb'er opposite running 40 watts desensing my radio so not worth answering at that time.

Also running 4 metres with a Wouxun KG-6993 handy. Also to a quarter wave on roof (Cut to exactly to 1 metre). No joy as yet on that one.