September has wrapped up here at the Home QTH, and it’s been another fantastic month of filling up the logbook with digital modes. Operating strictly on FT8 and FT4, the bands provided some excellent propagation windows that kept the rig warm and the antenna working hard. Over the course of the month, I managed to […]
I had an old 12m spider pole, these are very robust versions of the antenna pole and suitable for many applications. As this was a semi permanent solution, I tapped up the joints in the pole with self amalgamating tape. Its also possible to buy a clamp system, suitable for clamping each section of the […]
August turned out to be another busy month from the shack, with plenty of activity across the HF bands and a few particularly satisfying DX catches along the way. By the end of the month, the log had grown by 518 QSOs, involving 457 different callsigns and contacts with stations in 78 countries. That works […]
LEFARS field weekend, in the middle of May can go either way with the weather. This year we were lucky, and while the sun did shine, the HF bands had other ideas. Equipment used IC-7300 Antenna 7 MHz – 1/4 wave ground mounted vertical with 4 elevated radials Power Car V2L The weekend’s HF operation […]
What is an End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) It’s a multi-band antenna that is a half-wave on the lowest band of your choice. The simple calculation is 144 / f (MHZ) 3.6 MHz = 144/3.5 = 41.15m of wire So we can construct a simple, handy table for construction Freq Length 3.6 MHz 41.15 m […]
In a previous article, I discussed the APRS LoRa 433 MHz project, and how these little units provided an impressive range on +20 dBm or 100mW. The range in the car can or course be optimised by a resonant antenna and the addition of a PA amplifier. The PA suggest its capable of a 13dB […]