23cm @ PA1JIM

There wasn’t any 23cm ground plane antenna yet on the roof @ PA1JIM headquarters, only the double quad antenna. But the quad is pointing towards the PI6NOS-repeater.
Therefor it was impossible for me to open the 23cm repeaters in Den Haag and Rotterdam. Furthermore I wasn’t fully satisfied about my Diamond X200N for 2m and 70cm. It worked, but not beautifully.

Diamond X5000

While a good friend of mine had a Diamond X5000 laying around, I was able to borrow it for a few days for testing. I put it on the dormer on a little mast. As a result 23cm was working pretty much okay. I was able to open PI6RTD (Rotterdam) and PI6HGL (Den Haag) and able to hear PI6AMF (Amersfoort) and PI6ASD, but couldn’t open them. Consequently I now have the ability to have local QSO’s with ham’s around me and not only via the repeater PI6NOS.

Diamond X6000

When looking around for a permanent solution for ground plane 23cm I bumped in a bit larger brother of the X5000: the Diamond X6000. Without really looking at the specs I figured: it’s longer, it must be better! It costs as little as 20 euro more then the X5000 so I figured that shouldn’t be a spoiler. But when I was ready putting it on the roof I found out the X6000 performed a little less on 23cm then the X5000 (11,8dBi against 10dBi). But none the less it worked perfect and 2m and 70cm worked a lot better then my X200N!

Conclusion

In conclusion I’m quite satisfied with the end result. Although the X5000 has little more specs on 23cm then the X6000 it is not noticeable and the good performance on 2m and 70cm make up for the little lagged gain on 23cm.
Next on my wanted list are an JWX-splitter for 2/70/23 so I can connect all my single banders on the X6000 and a new piece of coax cable. I suspect the current one of unnecessary cable loss (especially on 23cm). More on that later!