After our walk around Haytor on Sunday, the GL had to go to work on Monday, for me it was my final day off before going back myself today, so what better way to spend it than going back up the Moors and throwing some almost random wire up in the air.
Procured from work for such activities were some aluminium poles, these have been drilled and can be bolted together to form a length of around 20', along with the homebrew 3 band dipole and a nice quiet tourist free location around 1300' ASL after an hour's setting up I was ready to hit the bands.
20m was very open to Europe and Stateside, with 15m absolutely dead, and on 40m mostly Germany and a few inter 'G' heard.
I made no contacts on 20 or 15m, but did manage 3 inter g's on 40m with Bob, G3ITH in the Midlands, and Ian, 2E0IMT around 8 miles from Bob.
Also I made contact with another portable, this time well 'up north' with GM8UPI, Dave, in his caravan on the Isle of Skye, I was given a solid 5/5.
And here is picture of the mobile with the homebrew portable set-up.
To round off a great day I also spoke with Adam, M6RDP and Eddy, 2E0EDY, from Torquay and Exmouth respectively on 2m from Haytor Rocks, where we also tried accessing a couple of echolink nodes, no contacts though.
A couple of snags cropped up with the portable op's, one is that the pole needs a base as when I was guying one side of the dipole the pole swivelled in the scaffold bracket and crashed to the ground, resulting in lots of tangled wires.
Also with the 2 wire dipole, I need to figure out an easy way to pack and unpack it, so that I dont spend ages de-tangling wire, takes me back to my early kite-buggying days.
I did think about building a collapsable vertical, but I like the 2 wire dipole as it is truly resonant on 3 bands, a vertical would not be, two bands at best.
Great photo, Paul. Thanks for the loan of the PSU. I shall take good care of it. A caravan on the Isle of Skye sounds bliss to me! Good retirement plan! Been to Exmouth all day today with Bradley and a day off radio. Good to see you last night at the club. 73 for now, Adam
ReplyDeleteHi Adam,
ReplyDeleteExmouth eh, thought you would definately be on the radio terrorising Eddy and into the Exmouth echolink, was listening to it earlier, though not plucked up the courage to speak yet ?!!
Yes the club was fun last night, good turn out, enjoying the lighter but not yet warmer evenings.
This echolink lark, I have decided to keep it radio and not bother with the pc link up side of it, seems lots on the paignton node anyway, heard a VK mobile on his way to work earlier.
73 for now off to zz land,
Paul.