Inflatable HF Antenna Update

 Better, first ever proper contact.

So, what's going on?

I finally plugged the antenna on 26 in the study to the FT-847. Good reception.

But no spots.

I struggled very badly, 20W, antenna nicely balanced, receives well, no signal

After three days I gave up and moved it to the other room where FT-818 is. It received somewhat better, but not stellar. Then suddenly I started to have "RF in the Shack" issues with the USB interfaces and the radio. I gave up.

Today after work I tried again, no luck.

Then it dawned on me, neither radio have a good earth. I did the worst possible earthing on the FT-818, replied a CQ message, and bang got a contact.

Since them I'm still struggling to make a contact, that's normal with QRP, but I am being spotted and I am hearing quite well as well.

Moral of the story? Earth matters.

Inflatable HF antenna

 So - we hit the buy button for an inflatable HF antenna. It arrived last Monday and I procrastinated for a week. Finally it's been inflated, hanging off a curtain rail.

I haven't really tried it with TX, I called a single stream of CQ into 14Mhz FT8 but didn't pursue, I had to get on with work.

It is receiving well enough:

HF bicycle mobile

 I'm going to take someone's eye out.

Seaside portable HF and bicycle mobile VHF work

We've been to Hayling Island, walked around, and then set up an HF station.

First I made the mistake of leaving the radio on USB instead of Digi. That wasted half an hour. 

Then we switched to the right setting and immediately did a QSO but our luck dried after that. We tried some FT4, no luck. Antenna tuned onto 17m band as well but it was empty. 

14MHz was VERY busy and we really couldn't cut through with 2.5W so I brought the big battery from the car and still with 5W we suffered. We could see that we were being heard on the PSK Reporter but no one was answering. People don't want to work with low signals, which is weird since FT8 is inherently a weak signal mode. We should seek for those with lower signal values. 

Regardless, we had fun. Finally we were too cold so we packed up.

Then I switched to pushbike mobile. That's a very cheap 2/70cm antenna attached to the bike. I cycled around and tried to have contacts back to the car. The FT65 couldn't make a contact with the rubber duck clearly but with this it was crystal clear. Still the other end did suffer so we should have switched antennas at the top of the car but giving instructions over the bad link was too cumbersome so I cycled back.

This is the antenna, 14MHz end-fed with a 49:1 UnUn. Works very well.

Sheeps try out the satellite mode.

We didn't hear anything but the woods was perfect.

I think the sheep were operating the radio & the antenna incorrectly.

A wild predator haunting its prey

FT8 UHF contest

It was fun. I did 6 contacts and M7 did one. We used the FT-818 and the cheap Nagoya 2/70cm clone next to the potted plants in front of the window, vertically and we still made some contacts.

I also tried the 70cm ZL Special inside but that didn't work well.

Fiber poles 3-decade apart

On the left, the 6-piece fibre pole I had purchased from a ham rally early 2000s, on the right the fibre pole I purchased this year. 

 

They are for different purposes, the one on the left can carry a massive, heavy 10+ element 2m yagi antenna w/o a big deal, the one on the right is can cope with carrying small wire antennas or flags but it's significantly lighter and dead easy to use too.