In reply to 2E0LAE:
Yes, although it was very windy where I was, I had great fun Here’s looking forward to the next one!
I have just had a look at the photo of your 6 Metre Dipole on Flickr & to look at it’s position you wouldn’t expect it to work well at all, but it certainly did!
If you want to do even better on 6 Metres without much effort you could always make a portable telescopic Dipole similar to mine. It probably weighs a little more than yours, but it also works on 4 Metres & 2 Metres, although I would only use it on 2 Metres for SSB if I had no alternative. It is best mounted horizontally & only cost me the price of two telescopic whips from Maplin.
The telescopic whips are about 1.3 Metres long so you need to add a bit in the middle to make up the missing length. I did this using some heavy gauge solid Copper wire with a chocolate block connector in the middle. The RF choke is 5 turns of coax through a ferrite ring, which is probably a little too far from the feedpoint, but it works, & I’m not changing it. HI!
To support the middle I used a piece of plastic tile edging material that I had lying around, but any lightweight insulating material will do, plastic pipe, or even wood would be fine.
I suffer from horrendous QRM on 6M at home so I relish the opportunity to work 6 Metres from nice locations away from noisy consumer electronics & other such nasties.
I have put some photos on my newly created Flickr page for you to have a look at, along with a few SOTA related photos. I’m not doing too well at my target of activating all 17, (soon to be 16) southern Pennine summits by the end of the year, but I didn’t think I’d have done 5 by now so who knows
All good fun
Here are the photos if this thing works correctly
As you say, it’s all about experimentation, & of course, enjoying yourself
Have fun!
73,
Mark G0VOF