Radio developments August 07
Well a slight improvement in circumstances has finally allowed the acquisition of the long awaited Hustler 5-BTV antenna for use from home for the 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m (and with subtle modification even 17m) use. The antenna was finally erected and guyed last Saturday being ground mounted at the back of the house and it just remains to wire in and fine tune so looking forward to that.
Mike assisted with the construction on Saturday though we did get a little sidetracked with a tropo opening on 2m resulting in using the QRP FT290r with the 6element Yagi to chat to a bloke in Newhaven for over an hour (hello Colin G3ZAF) both via Bournemouth repeater and simplex FM. Which has now prompted the next possible project to materialise in my fertile mind!!!! Ever on the look out for a future project I got to thinking about our 2m QRP working into Newhaven and figured I could do with a mini-beam up on the TV aerial post - found one (an HB9CV) on the net which looks pretty neat, hardly noticeable I would have thought and I'll probably take down the now redundant TV aerial and use its bracket. It will probably also replace the slim jim ultimately which is effectively doing bugger all!! Thinking of having a go at putting it together in copper pipe and connectors so could be worth a try. The thing should give up to about 5dbd gain and the vertically polarised (for FM) pattern is such that I could fix it facing north east (hence no need for a rotator) and cover the south coast pretty much from Weymouth up to Dover as well as the inland parts like Wells and Weston repeater and beyond in the right conditions!!!! Blimey..., that has to be worth a try!!!!! Better get back into scrounging mode I reckon!!!
- Posted by Rob Luscombe on 13/08/2007.
- Rob Luscombe's site
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