EA2/NV-116 today. Whip Antenna testing

Hello,

EA2BSB and myself took the chance today of a short and quick p.m. activation of Iriberri summit to test a homebrew whip that I’m setling for Sota.

In normal activations I use either a random wire (7m long) plus a Tuner or Monoband inverted Vees.

In today’s activation I used the first prototype of my whip. The goal is to simplify the gear, to reduce weight, to get rid of the Tuner and to reduce the required time to start the activation and to dismantle the antenna afterwards.

The whip is composed of a 4m long fishpole, 2 wires (4m total length) and a center coil I use to tune it in 10 MHz. In 14 MHz the coil is bypassed and it’s a quarter wave.
In the future I intend to add a second coil in series to allow 7MHz operation.
The antenna is feeded by a homebrew UNUN 1:1 with a single radial and coax to the rig.

You can see a picture in;
Imgur

Conditions in the summit were very bad: the summit is crowded with aero turbines and when I started calling on 10MHz the noise level was S8! Sorry if anyone called me and didn’t get my reply…

I managed to work several stations with moderate reports (Tnx to all chasers who worked me taking me out of the floor level).

I ended in 14MHz and G4SSH worked me again with some dificulties (good ears Roy!!!).

In the end 6 QSO in 30m & 8 QSO in 20m, 8 DXCC, not bad results for the conditions on the summit but I need to fine tune the system and try some more summits to feel the difference with other antennas.
When it was finised I’ll post the final design in case it’s of your interest.

VY 73
Ignacio.