Nice dx with simple antenna

Old Reflector
1

hi friends,
today i went onto the lupfen summit where i have easy walk up to do a short antenna test. i build a few days before a very simple triple leg antenna for 20,17m and 15m. only needed a fishing pole 7m, some wires, 4m coax cable and two connectors. its a linked vertical with connectors to open the antenna wire.so its a simple groundplane 1/4wave with 3 radial, one for each band 1/4Lambda long.
with the first calls on 20m some NA stations comes back to my call,fine :slight_smile:
also worked a s2s with PA0SKP/P,very weak…but workable.the test on 17 and 15m are not so good,maybe the wrong time ? bad condx ? not sure…maybe the simple antenna ? nice qso on 15m i had with hb9 and some nearer friends in dl via groundwave…nice cw-signals with sometimes echo/distortion effects on it,maybe due to the reflections at the summits in hb9…
40m was not planned , not really due to this short antenna. but after the test i tried to tune the gp with connectors set to 20m band with my T1 tuner via the short coax cable…and it works. not sure how much power goes in the air in real with this matched antenna but i worked some stations on 40m,also a few in ssb. i wonder, but thats fine :slight_smile:
later then i called again on 20m with not much coming back. so i decided to make some calls on 17m to end the activation. first one was VE1 in cw,good.
then i went to 18.123 ssb and called cq sota…first one was ea7, followed by a W5 station with s9/s7. then i called again cq sota and J67ZF Derek called in and gaves me a solid s9. He was very loud on this small antenna and i told him a bit over sota and that it was very cold on summit. he don´t knew something about sota, but told me something that he has nice 30°C wx :slight_smile: wow…he works me with 800 watts …that the fantastic thing in hamradio. never thinked about to called by nice dx. qrp with 10watts and a fishing rod antenna.
later a local friend called in to told me that J67ZF was only very weak on his 3 element beam. maybe its why the summit lupfen falls down in height in a very low angle to direction west. maybe i have good groundgain there…and a clean band without plc…or other qrm.
yes , i like these qrp´ing sota from the summits :slight_smile: everytime new fascination for me on the bands…
next, i will try to feed this antenna with twin wire for more bands and then i will try the nocounterpoise vertical/M3KXY…
next week i order a antenna switch to have real antenna a / b feedback.
thanks for the good chaser support by the regulars and friends from NA who gives me a dx call from time to time :slight_smile:

so, see you again from the summits

73 Klaus DF2GN

2

In reply to DF2GN:

Hi Klaus, thanks for popping into 40M SSB. Your signal was fine, the ‘R’ of 3 was because of QRM. I think the experiment worked well as you know by the full report I gave you. We spoke at 1655Z at which time for me Russia and other longer skip stations pile in. I think an antenna switch is a good idea. I do this here and sometimes I am suprised.

Bye for now
Mike G6TUH

3

In reply to DF2GN:

Hi Klaus,
I’m enjoying all your comments and testing performed with different antennas…
I also love to build and test them. It’s so good to work DX with simple and cheap wire antennas!

After different trials,I see no great difference between a tuned random wire, a quarter wave or a resonant Vee dipole, although there are differences on radiation pattern and effective radiated power.

It’s very good you post your notes and share your ideas. I also love to hear the silent floor noise on top of a summit, much better than the home QRM!

Other difference to take into account when comparing antennas is the time to deploy it on a summit, the weight, the requirements for support…
As you said, the best is to perform A/B comparative test to see real differences. I’ll keep ad eye waiting for your further experimentation.

Good luck VY 73
Ignacio.