Everything is in place for the ARRL RTTY Roundup. The new ZS6BKW works okay, the 10m vertical is still up and running. A little weird schedule during this contest (starts at 18:00 UTC on Saturday) but that’s okay. Wish me luck in my second contest this year!
Another antenna
After earlier issues with my Fritzel FD-3 and the fact it is not able to do 80m (which is a serious handicap with most contests) made me search for yet another antenna solution.
Wilko PA3BWK (from who I did loose the division league) dropped by te other day. He did inspect my setup and advised me to use a ZS6BKW antenna. My problem with not being able to stretch out twice the same length of wire from both sides of my chimney could be solved when I let the feeding point float in the air and put one wire over the mast.
That way I’m able to put 2x 13,75 meter and feed it with 12,2 meters of 450-ohm ladder line.
Fred PA3YH sponsored me with some left over antenna wire from his antenna project and I found some open ladder line from one of my earlier own antenna projects.
I’m still optimizing the new setup. I put down my beautiful white mast for now and put up a slightly longer mast for the ZS6BKW. That means my 2m/70cm Diamond is down for the moment. But I guess not for long.
This time of year isn’t very nice to do antenna experiments. Lots of rain, strong winds and it’s cold. But I can’t wait for spring, that way I loose to many Q’s!
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to all my readers! The first day of the new year did bring a little contest: SART New Year RTTY contest. Of course I want to score some fresh and first points for 2014, so I entered the three hour contest on 80 and 40 meters. Quite a contest! Lots of stations participating and I even managed to do a few runs! I’ve made 77 Q’s, worked 13 DXCC’s and score 2618 points. I think a nice start for 2014.