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!