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SkywireloopSome time ago I was reading about an full wave loop antenna. I was interested in this antenna right away. Since the preparation for the full radio exam I was told that full size antenna’s always outperform half wave or quarter wave antenna’s. The only problem is the space you need to make such an antenna operational.

Well, over here in the Hautes Alpes there is space enough! So I already bought some fishing rods earlier. A few days back I assembled the fullwave loop antenna for 40 meters. I placed the rods in a square with 10 meters between each rod. Put a wire in between and hooked it up to my TS-50. Immediately I noticed the difference between an open dipole (as setup in earlier article) and this skywire loop. It is much, much more quit on all bands, therefore I can pickup so many more signals. Almost every signal is stronger on the loop then the dipole. Only a few signals are stronger on the dipole. So as I already suspected from all the reading I did on fullwave loops: they perform very well! I will think about a more permanent setup of a skywire loop over here in de Hautes Alpes.

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multiband open dipoleAt my current QTH at 44.5362N, 5.9366E, JN24XM (Les Hautes Alpes, France) where I’ll stay the next week, I did want to experiment with a multiband open dipole. Therefore I assembled a lot of electric wire and some wood at home. The only thing I had to do over here was roll it out and find a place to put it up.

Although I’ve build the multiband open dipole for 4 bands (80, 40, 20 and 10m) and had to put 40 meters of wire up in the air, it is no problem to find a place for it here. The only problem is the 2 meters of snow. I had to ‘swim’ through the snow to be able to reach the trees. I can assure you my parents and girlfriend enjoyed my adventure!

After a few hours the dipole was up and running. The first contact with ON50WAASLAND on 80 meters was quickly made. This morning I’ve worked C4EURO on Cyprus on 20 meters. First impression of the dipole is good. My Kenwood AT-50 is able to tune the dipole on all HF bands except 30 meters. In spite of the very bad conditions I get pretty easy good reports. Although I think the multiband dipole is a little bit noisy.

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I’m a member of the national radio club Veron. Every region in the Netherlands has its own department which are coordinated centrally from Veron Headquarters. Based on your address you’re member of that region (I guess this is the way it works in every country). Because I’m living in Hilversum I’m member of Veron department ‘t Gooi.

A few years ago the old clubhouse burned down and since then ‘t Gooi was located in a temporary location above a local primary school. Needless to say the location was not ideal of course.
But the last two months there were very cool things going on. We’ve got an offer to move in a new location: the old NERA-building. The NERA-building is a pretty old building that was used for radio communications with Indonesia back in the days Indonesia was still a colony of the Netherlands. The location was chosen for it’s perfect soil conditions for radio.
Of course this would be the perfect place for a radio club to have their clubhouse!

So we’re in the new locations for a few weeks now. Enjoying all the space! Last evening (every tuesday is our get-together-evening) we had a meeting about what antenna’s there should build, how the clubhouse must be decorated, should or shouldn’t we have a bar, etc. It’s nice to be member of a club were all the members are active, enthusiastic and there are some financial means to do something! I will post some pictures of the new location asap!