Another busy day on 10m

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 It's hectic, it's exciting!

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EFHW antenna and the dodgy 49:1 Unun

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You might remember the 49:1 UnUn I had built on a small cardboard box. (Actually I might not have blogged about that, I'll do a post later). Successfully tested on Saturday. Two contacts under 10 mins, then we got cold and walked back home. 9m pole, 10m of thin wire, couple of metres of counter-poise, SWR was 1:1.5 or better at 14MHz. 2.5W to it and we bagged two contacts right away.
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SWLing again...

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Well that was fun. We were out on Christmas eve & the boxing day, and then I was out on the bank holiday Monday. I mentioned the activities on the Christmas Eve  earlier. On the boxing day we were out for a walk, and then did some radio stuff. We could hear a pile up from Europe to Bolivia, and the chap was coming out 59 very loud! On our little single-band 20m vertical! Incredible signal. Unfortunately no one heard us transmitting 2W, including our sheep's attempts. On the Monday bank holiday I grabbed the equipment and headed out once more. I tried some 50MHz SSB and FM calling, no luck. I also did this half the time with the microphone gain down all the way. You moron... Finally I finished at 14MHz once more, hearing loads of VK and very strong EU signals. No responses to my CQs. The radio was allegedly putting out 100W but I could see a lot less on the SWR meter so I wonder if the radio's power is down somehow. I hope I didn't break this radio.  Also it was freezing...
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Long wire build day

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 Ms B and I built a long wire antenna. It tool a while to measure for the length! It's way too long for a small flat. Design was based on this: https://udel.edu/~mm/ham/randomWire/ "A standard recommendation (see QST, March 1936, p. 32, "An Unorthodox Antenna") is an 84' long end fed and a 17' long counterpoise (6.5' for 20m). While these lengths have been shown to work well on many bands, which is helpful if you're in a hurry to get on the air, read up on the topic and experiment." We managed to test the antenna in July - it works very well!
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