Setting up around 1340 UTC tomorrow on GW/NW-051, beaming West towards North America. Accurate signal reports will be much appreciated.
If its more directional than the 1/4L vertical ( it should be ), I will setup on a bigger mountain on the weekend, if the weather is suitable.
Many thanks !
Jonathan
The Moxon is a great antenna whether used in horizontal or vertical polarisation.
If you have time, please swing it around to your South East, so we down here get a chance of a contact!
73 Ed DD5LP
I will give it ago Ed and swing it around to Germany.
It seems promising at the moment. Both the driven and reflector were tuned right from calculation, without needing adjustment in the back garden. I can rotate it without it interfering with the guying lines too. Fits nicely on a 10m pole. It doesn’t overload the pole, but equally it won’t take any reasonable wind gust.
It has been done before for SOTA, but I have never tried it before. Vertical 1/4L is pretty good and very portable, the problem is I get so much EU I don’t always hear the DX coming in at the same time.
Jonathan
Try late afternoon early evening then. I’ve had many activations where I can’t hear the EU for the DX when using a L/4 GP at that time of day!
Hi Jonathan,
if propagation gives you an aid, for sure you will get good results with your Moxon.
I also used mine portable and Vertical polarized a couple years ago with very good results in 21 MHz…
Good luck tomorrow!
73 de Ignacio
I have read your article Ignacio, gave me some ideas to make the top support - thanks. Its slightly smaller then yours having made it for 17m rather than 20m, which allowed me to get away with the pole support being free from catching inside the rectangle.
The first interesting observation was directing it towards the house and watching the HF noise go up !
The vertical is certainly good enough, this is just to try something different.
Tom, I will try setting up slightly earlier, although I have tried late evening / early morning / mid afternoon before. I suppose the disadvantage to this approach is having to keep getting up to move it around !
Jonathan
Hi hi! Old article back in 2009… You’re a good browser to catch that old story!
I’m happy to see it does worth writing things to bring some ideas to others for future projects…
Thanks for spotting this old thing as still useful. 73 and have fun tomorrow.
Ignacio
Better get a Sherpa to swing it about 17m wow that,s fairly big.
Like to see picture of it and dimensions please AND request a southward pointing as well please.
M3FEH
Do you know something about E-layer ionisation that you are keeping to yourself?
Hi Jonathan,
Unfortunately wasn’t able to catch you. I listened to one side of your QSO with a NA station (I think) and a Kuwait station. I guess if you had the antenna in the direction of Kuwait, that would have been about right for me but it seems you were skipping over the top of me.
Never mind, perhaps next time.
73 Ed DD5LP.
I had it in various positions Ed, but mainly pointing West. I managed to get 9K2BM to wait until I pointed it in his direction, he then came up to S9 from S7.
No images sorry, I stopped on the account of the wind getting up. I don’t think it did too badly considering the band was almost dead. KA1R, KD2HHT and 9K2BM being the best DX.
What surprised me was the amount of UK stations coming back, strange. I don’t consider it to be cloud warming that much, well its more likely side lobes I suspect. It was not a fair test of its capabilities today. Next time I will do a direct comparison against the vertical. All good fun !
Yes I heard your QSO with 9K2BM - he was running a kilowatt and I wonder what antenna. As for the UK contacts, I would also not expect the Moxon to be an NVIS antenna - perhaps some of those contacts were direct line of sight?
The main thing was that the antenna was physically solid in the winds, more so I guess than a horizontaly mounted one could be.
73 Ed.
It would almost certainly need two poles on level ground, not often encountered on mountains around here.
It must be conditions, most of the stations logged this afternoon are local, the furthest out being Manchester or perhaps Carolyn actually as her and Helen called first signing in GM (mobile).
As long as the wind didn’t change significantly in direction it was perfect !
Jonathan
Hi Jonathon,
It must be conditions, most of the stations logged this afternoon are local, the furthest out being Manchester or perhaps Carolyn actually as her and Helen called first signing in GM (mobile).
We were driving around the eastern coast of Luce Bay (southeast of Stranraer) at the time. The path would have been direct over the sea (we were at sea level and looking at a map the Isle of Man was just off to the west of the path) with a distance of 130 miles (210 km). I doubt there were any enhanced propagation modes involved but what I feel happens is when the band goes completely flat (with no skip) the general noise level drops allowing ground-wave stations to appear stronger.
Carolyn
G6WRW