Well lets see now…
The Capitals beat the Bruins and I-C denied developmental licences for reasons unknown… and I was out playing in the park today with my FT 897 running higher power levels…
Yup… I actually was running 100w for a few minutes but then dialed it back to 20 and still made the contacts… Its been a while since this rig has made it outside. Normally it only heads to the great outdoors for Field Day but this time its a bit different.
I will be using the FT897 on Friday as part of the Communications Demonstration that a few of us are giving to the Glengarry Memorial Hospital in Alexandria Ontario. We will be demonstrating a few different operating modes and I will be attempting to show HF NVIS SSB operations.
That means that I have to use a little more than my regular 5w portable equipment as it would be not really impressive to use the poor band conditions excuse to people who do not understand the hobby or the science of radio propagations…
So seeing that most of my antennas are also QRP Antennas (made with lightweight wire) rather than the thicker wire that can handle 100w I decided to build a new dipole. Seeing that the dipole was built the next step was to take it out and fill it with RF and see how things worked…
This afternon VA3PCJ and myself headed over to a local park and I strung the antenna up about 4 feet off the ground and fired up the FT897 on 40m… I set the power for 100w and the built in SWR meter on the radio said that I had done an OK job when I built the antenna as the SWR was fine… After that I dialed the power back to 20w and spun the dial on 40 to see what I could find…
Even with the lowered antenna which SHOULD OF shortened the first hop the band was very long… In no time I had a couple of W3′s in the log and a trio of W8′s but no VA/VE3′s… We managed to talk to VE3HVA on 40m but seeing that we were about 2 miles west of Ricks house I won’t count groundwave… but I did get a nice signal report…
Finally just before I tore down I did manage an actual contact in Ontario when I talked to VE3PSV on the Trans Provincal Net…
So the antenna worked fine and its also durable and strong enough to handle the 100w of the FT897 which is a good thing but… It makes me a bit nervous when I have done everything I can and I’m still dependant on the Propagation Deity to ensure the successful demonstation
73bob
Tags: 40m Dipole Antenna, amateur radio, amateur radio antenna, Amateur Radio Portable Operations, VA3PCJ, Yaesu FT 897
