Wednesday, 29 December 2010

We cant all have large beams..

Maybe you don't have enough 'estate', the funds wont allow, or more likely the Station Manager has spoken, perhaps you don't actually want a large antenna, either way what does it matter as long as you are enjoying your radio.

I have a HAM friend local to me who uses a SteppIR 3 element yagi antenna, we quite often hook up on 20m to work Stateside, Penn, G0VQY puts out a fabulous signal, rare is his report anything less than 5/9, mine however is often 4/0 to 5/5 on my homebrew 40/20/15m dipole and 100 watts, but do I care, no not one bit, it just spurs me on to improve my station !

However on 10m with the Sporadic E running, my vertical 5/8 does start to give him a run for his money !







4 comments:

  1. Hello Paulo,

    name is David, call CT1DRB, near Lisbon,

    You are a lucky ham, you could have a nice vertical on. At my building I am not allowed to have any kind of antenna, even a small antenna is not tolerate. My unique ham activity is outside home or at club.

    A Happy New Year 2011 to you and your family.

    CT1DRB
    David Quental

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  2. Good morning, very nice beam antenna for sure and as for your setup sounds very worthy as well. As for me it's a 20 meter and 40 meter attic dipoles running at an impressive 10 watts or 5 watts most of the time.

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  3. Hi Paul - In my early days I yearned to have a beam up 50 feet or so, if we were more rural I probably would, but these days I am quite happy picking up EU contacts - anything further afield is a bonus for me - wire dipoles do work very well and easy to match and 5-20 watts is all I need for digi or Cw, Microphones are alien to me.

    Happy New Year Paul

    73 Peter

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  4. Hi David, thanks for replying, yes I am lucky, and that's the thing sometimes we are never satisfied, perhaps that could be a New years resoulution, to be more happy with my lot !

    Hi Mike, I am happy with the dipoles, some trimming is required for the 20m wires, as resonant at 13.8 Mhz, but am aware that the 40m wire has some bearing as well..

    Hi Peter, perhaps another resolution to learn the code, they are very keen at my club with the oldest 'digital' mode !

    73 all and a Happy New Year.

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