In between trying for DX … I have been busy fixing, building and creating three antennas which have been on my got to get done list for a while now…
The first was to build (or rebuild) my 1/4 wave 6m dipole… It uses a piece of PVC Pipe as the insulator and I use two 54 inch lengths of copper pipe as the elements. This was my antenna of choice at home for 6m till I built the lightweight delta loop. Seeing that I broke the Delta Loop last weekend and I needed something up fairly quickly for the CY9M DXPedition it was a quick rebuild. I guess it worked fine as Cy9M is now in my log on 6m ssb.
The second project was the creation of what I hope is a 15m to 40m magnetic loop. I put all the pieces in the right places and hooked it up and it recieved. It also tunes just a bit (noise increases and decreases) but I was expecting more. In the next little while I will have to hook it up to an antenna analyser and see how good or bad it actually is BEFORE I transmit with it… This one is a work in progress. I did rcv CY9M on 17m with it though but the S reading was not very high but neither was my noise so it might be a trade off…
Finally as I was on a roll I have had the 7 element 2m beam that belongs to Doug VE3DLJ sitting in my backyard needing repairs for a while now… I got so confident after my two previous jobs that I jury rigged the repairs and it works… parts are still needed before it goes up on a mast but… the temporary repairs show that its now worth getting the parts to repair properly…
Its been a great weekend…
73bob
