Typically on activity nights we use just one HF antenna – such as multi-band vertical or wire dipole and we manage to work a dozen stations on HF. However, this week we had two portable antennas at our club base at Pinetrees, giving us the opportunity to work two bands – 20m and 6m.
The 6 metre antenna, brought in by Paul 2E0PMV, was a commercially made Moxon loop supported on a Maplin extendible mast. Six was reported to be open throughout the day so we were keen to check out the E skip to see if conditions had changed. Having hooked up the PSU to the Kenwood TS 590S, by 8pm we were ready to put G8SRC on air.
Rob, M0GKG took to the mike first and comfortably worked a couple of stations in Eastern Europe. Then, Tony G4LDL followed suit, working some very strong signals from Spain. By nine o’clock, conditions declined we switched the rig to ANT2 and gave 20m a try using a homebrew portable 20m rotary dipole made by Ed M0OSM.
This very professionally built antenna was similar in appearance to the Buddipole. Mounted on an 8M painting pole, the antenna itself was made from two portable short verticals, screwed into a threaded dipole centre. This time, Rob worked several European stations with ease – Norway, Spain and Latvia all reported 59. And Phil M0PBZ couldn”t resist trying the M0OSM-antenna on the CW section of 20 metres. On 14048, 4Z4DX in Israel came in too strong to ignore and Rolf gave us a 599 report. Not bad for such a compact antenna. So all in all, we had a very active activity night.
For anyone wishing to explore Amateur radio, visitors are most welcome. Even in challenging weather conditions, we always aim to operate our club station on activity nights usually using SSB and CW modes. If you would like to come along to see Amateur Radio in action, contact us at [email protected]. And if you are a licenced Amateur, or an inactive licensee it would be great to see you.