…you forget your planned antenna setup at home?
I had the chance to answer that question yesterday. My plan was to activate DM/BM-258. I was there already five times, knowing the situation at the summit well. So I opted for the about 7m wire unmatched with counterpoise, throw line and no mast.
Arriving at the parking place I was wondering on the massive amount of mountain bikers. It was even hard to find a slot. Anyway, bikers and hikers routes are separated, I started with the ascent. After 10 min walk, I had a kind of mental replay of packing my backpack, remembering what I put in. Well, and what I forgot! I forgot the antenna and as well the throwing line/weight. I had rearranged my shack recently, the antennas now have a different shelf and that obvious broke a routine in my mind.
Well, I still had the AX1 with me, but amateur radio is about experimenting. So I used the ascent to brainstorm what I could use instead. I had a binding post adapter with me, I take this extra one with me in case the other one gets wet, esp. in winter times. And I had the counterpoises for 20 and 40 m from the AX1. But how to get the wire up in a tree? I only had a line of 2m. I finally used a small bag (which I use for accessories), put a stone in, knotted it to the line and the wire. This “system “ was rather short, so I ended with a kind of inv. L- sloper, the throwing weight still dangling some meters high in the tree. With the back pack as strain relief I connected to the KX2 via the binding post. The rest was done by the matching unit. 30m with SWR 1:1. 40m was quite unstable but possible. 20m not possible.
In the end I had 18 shortwave QSO‘s in the log, was happy with experimenting a bit and with the certainty that there is always a kind of solution. Below some pictures of the setup.
PS: in 30m there was one /p in the noise, maybe a HB9, but I really could not get you. Sorry
