The rope came undone at far end of my EFRW. I had to fish it back down with a wire hook stuck in a fishing pole.
The SWR was a bit high, and I found broken wires in 9:1 balun, so I stripped the wires and reassembled it.
With the antenna working again, I contacted New Caledonia on 10M FT8 with 8W.
The quarter-wave ground plane antenna in the tree disconnected in the wind, so I brought it back down and rebuilt it stronger with radials passing through the holes and woven together. I used randomly shorter radials, but 8 of them this time. I watched the SWR drop with the nanoVNA as I added radials. I resoldered the driven element into the socket and trimmed it to tune it again.
I took along the old slim jim antenna I bought at my first ham fest. I understand now better how to tune it: I need to make it a little longer, not just slide the feed point up and down the batch.
The antenna was a little short by measurement with the NanoVNA. I hung it from a fan in the middle of the room to measure it without interference. I lengthened it at the far bend by soldering some extra house wire in the bend.
Now it looks perfect for 2m and 70cm.
I was using the 71-foot (21.64m) EFRW antenna at home, and I noticed SWR was surprisingly low as measured by the X6100 with the tuner disabled. I suspected loss on the feed line, but I also found this video of another person not using a tuner with the same antenna.
I disconnected my feed line at different places to find SWR jumps way high, so the measurement is working:
Does a very long wire have low SWR for everything? Is the 9:1 giving low SWR? The antenna’s working fine, and FT8 shows far-flung signals like always. Disconnecting antenna wire raised SWR above 1.5:1, but not much. Even with wires disconnected from the balun, it’s receiving a very few FT8 signals on 10m, and I can still transmit, but it’s folding back power with SWR just below 2. The tuner is definitely needed for 6m.
The 1/4-wave ground plane antenna in the tree dropped its feedline, so I brought it down to reattach it and resolder the radials.
I also walked down the yagi on the pole to straighten some elements, since it was a nice day. The yagi was spinning around in the wind, so I also changed the way it’s mounted to clamp it more securely.
I also added some reigns to the mast, so I can (try to) spin it from inside the window. It works well some times but not others. The pole can freeze to the ground.
I watched a video about NVIS NVIS achieves 75-90 degree take-off, very vertical, and about a 400-mile range. It can get you over obstacles. It’s most effective on 40m and 80m.
To build it, mount a dipole 1/8 wavelength above ground, horizontal. Add a reflector almost on the ground, 5% longer, to keep the ground from absorbing the signal.
I finished the FT Challenge. There was no special exchange this year. We could use other defined subbands in addition to the regular frequencies to alleviate crowding. We could work anyone, even if they’re not participating explicitly.
I operated QRP, so it was nice to find the quieter subbands and more FT4 activity. You earned multipliers for each 3000km, so I don’t really know on my score yet.
I found wsjtx-improved
on the Debian Linux repository,
so used that.
I saw the color improvements,
the better location labels with states,
and it had filters.
I learning some obvious things about AllStar: it can’t hear my DTMF if it’s currently transmitting, since it’s simplex, so it’s hard to control on a busy net.
Finally, I watched my home-built yagi flapping around on that windy day. I guess I can stop worrying about it, since it held up fine.
The home-brew yagi blows around in the wind a bit, so I brought it down this morning as it started to snow, so I could straighten and tighten the elements. I realigned it for the 985 repeater, and checked it to be giving -96dBm.
I also resoldered some radials on the 1/4-wave ground plane antenna that go knocked loose in the tree.
I added some sections to the flag pole to reach 37 feet, and I increased elements on the home-made yagi from 2 elements to 4 elements. Upon adding elements, I needed to stretch the driven element a couple millimeters longer to tune it. In testing, I’m seeing about -100 RSSI listening to W3GMS on a Quansheng. It was about -105 RSSI when mounted lower and only 2 elements.
