A couple of weeks ago I tried out my homebrew rig on Rombalds Moor (G/NP-028). Today I tried it out again on Cracoe Fell (G/NP-032) along with a new antenna. Another success I’m pleased to say, although I’d like to apologise to Phil G4OBK for taking about 5 attempts to send his name. I could blame the key or keyer but I think we all know it’s my incompetence. Actually, there’s no point blaming the keyer since I wrote the software for that.
I’d made a slight modification to the transceiver. A few times I’ve heard what I assume are broadcast stations breaking through so I bypassed the preamplifier. It’s not really needed as there is plenty of audio gain. Today I didn’t suffer the same problem.
The new antenna was a vertical EFHW for 20m. It has a loading coil near the centre so it fits on my 6m mast. It uses the same transformer and 2m counterpoise as my regular EFHW. I made it as it takes up less space than the regular EFHW - it could be useful on some summits or in other portable locations. I can see it being handy on a campsite. The main thing is it worked nicely with 7 contacts. I then set up the regular sloping wire and worked 11 on 40m followed by another 3 on 20m. At the end there were a few stations that called me but I struggled to get their callsigns. A QRZ? didn’t elicit much response so perhaps they were calling someone else or were struggling to hear me.
The photos are on the way up - it’s about another half hour to the obelisk at the summit.
