The GM4AFF Blog

I spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday daylight hours working on antennas. I hauled up the 160m dipole on Saturday morning only to discover that it was resonant on 2.005 MHz. This was interesting because the wire I use is actually 2-core ex-GPO stuff which is very strong, and seldom breaks. Of course, when it breaks, you can end up with a situation where the actual useful part of the wire that is elecrically connected is not the full length, as had happened in this case. It's more complicated than that because there was already an existing repair, which had a single wire electrically connected through it. Blah, blah, you get the point. It's only a f***g dipole!! But it works like a dream now, resonant on 1840 with 1:1 SWR.
Having frigged about with that all morning, I moved on to the 80m vertical, which still needed to be erected in it's 40ft form, get the guys set, then have the top 31 feet added and guyed. I had bought a load of new 3mm rope - stuff which I thought would be a lot better than the blue rope which I (and lots of other people) use. The reason most of my antennas fall down is because blue rope degrades in sunlight. The 3mm rope is for the top set of guys. I noticed that during the day they seemed to go loose, and I had to re-tighten them twice. All seemed to go well, the vertical is resonant on 3650 which was a surprise (but at 71 feet this makes sense). The SWR wasn't too good, but I then spent most of Sunday morning walking out 32 radials and that helped. It also helped to flatten out the SWR bandwidth. It's still not great but that must be due to a problem with the final run of coax from the box in the field to the antenna base, although the last connecting piece was replaced on Sunday.
I was quite chuffed to have got all 6 aerials working (after a fashion) by lunchtime on Sunday. Now I started on the receive antennas. Both the ewes and beverages all needed major work. I replaced the terminating resistors on the ewes, and used the new (home made) matching transformer on one (which I had made for Shetland). The beverages required a lot of work. I replaced about 150 feet of wire on the SE one, and sorted out the supports where the horses had tried to eat and head-butt them. The wire was degraded because of so many breaks due to deer crashing through it and rabbits eating the wire at the end where it's in the weeds at ground level. I had to repair a break in the NW one too, but this wasn't such a hassle. Nevertheless, it took the rest of the day. As it turned dark I went indoors to check them. I didn't hear much to give it a good test on 80m but they are working. On 40m it was more successful. I could hear W7WA as clear as a bell long-path. I flashed up the linear to call him only to discover that the indication on the 40m rotator controller wasn't indicating. I checked that it was still responding to rotation commands - it was, so it's another rotator cabling issue to deal with. I worked him anyway, as he was dropping into the noise.
As I drove down the road this morning I saw that the top section of the 80m vertical is bent over. Unfortunately the new rope which I have bought may not degrade in sunlight, but it stretches, which is probably a far worse problem!
I'm happy to think that all around the world others are also wrestling with antennas, getting them ready for next weekend. And of course, there are lots of people travelling off to exotic parts this week as well. Wish I was!! Good luck to them all!

Last year I went to CT3 (Madeira) to do CQ WW CW. This year, as my wife is donating one of her kidneys to my oldest son, and the transplant operation is on 3 Dec, I am probably not going to be be making a serious entry.
I have spent the last two weekends working on getting the antennas at home up to spec. The list of problems is long:
Both beverages are broken, both Ewes are broken, the 80m vertical is lying on the ground with broken guys, the top band dipole is broken at three points with the balun also disconnected, the Prosistel rotator on the 20m antenna tower is broken, and the reflector on the WARC beam is lying on the ground.
I spent last weekend lowering the big Westower with the 20m yagi, and removed the Prosistel rotator. The rotator controller is indicating 112 degrees all the time and the antenna appears to have spun round at least 3 times clockwise - the coax to the 20m yagi and the WARC beam are both damaged and will have to be chopped and re-terminated. I unwound the antenna by spinning it anti-clockwise 3 times - the limit stop didn't prevent me. Having removed the rotator I opened it up - it was as clean as a whistle, and the pot was working as it should. The Prosistel uses a 10 turn pot - you could turn it 5 times in either direction without damageing the thing. The controller has an electronic stop to prevent that happeneing, but it doesn't always work. Even when the rotator was off the tower the controller was still indicating 112 degrees. This is OK (I later calculated), but the manual incorrectly says it should indicate 000 degrees. The manual is rubbish, but this is made up for by the rotators ability to turn a house. To cut a long story short I eventually found that the cause of the wrong indication was due to a break in the cable underground. The cable runs for about 150 feet in a pipe, and unfortunately, I had to haul it out to find the break. It was an old join that had corroded. Moral of the story is never use a cable with a join, in a pipe. It will corrode.
This weekend was spent mending the feeders to those antennas, realigning the rotator, replacing the rotator cable, replacing the 160m and 80m dipole uphauls and getting the tower back up. Added to that I also lowered the 40m yagi tower because the 402CD SWR has gone up over the last year. The point of resonance has gone down to 6940kHz - why...? I lowered the tower, shortened the driven elements by about 2" and found that the point of resonance was now 7120kHz. This always mystifies me! I ended up extending and shortening the damned thing until eventually I had to add 3 inches of WIRE to the end of the driven elements to make it resonate on 7040. Next November I will have to remove these because the thing will decide to resonate on 6940 again.
As light faded today I was out there fixing the 160m balun, but it got too dark to see so I'll have to haul that up next weekend.
Still, what else is there to do at the weekend!? Rag chew with your old mates on 80m I suppose.

This year I went to Shetland for the CQ WW SSB and it was a real struggle from start to finish! Shetland experienced the highest wind speeds of the year on the Saturday night (93 mph) and I never did get the main mast and tribander up in the air. But thank goodness, because it would have fallen down in those winds! Propagation from 60deg North is always poor and this weekend was no exception - 10m never opened, and 15m was wierd with signals coming and going all the time. I sometimes felt like a distant voice in the wilderness with a trapped vertical and my trusty HF2V. It was impossible to get a run going on any band and to add to everthing else the power failed on Saturday for 10 hours! And the trip home on the ferry was pretty exciting too.
But would I go back? - yes indeed! I really enjoyed myself in spite of everything. Thanks for all the QSOs - it was great to meet up with Hans MM0XAU again and a real thrill to give a lot of old friends the GZ mult.