A Different Antenna

Early Monday morning saw Tim-VA3TIC and myself back up on Fort Henry Hill......rumour has it that we're up there so often that the Fort is about to issue us both scarlet tunics!!  The weather was great, but the wind was up and gusting to about 40KPH.

It was a disappointing morning for myself as I chose to operate 2m SSB and did not hear a thing anywhere on the band.  I even tried 2m CW and still didn't get a response to my CQ's.  In the end I went back to the FM portion and checked into local and distant morning nets.  It's amazing just where you can get into from that location.

VA3TIC/Mobile

Tim, on the other hand, was trying out his new "sputnik antenna".   He has homebrewed a magnetic mount that enables him to have a 102" whip for 10m as well as hamsticks for 15m, 17m, 20m, and 80m.  It tunes up nicely on all bands, and he managed to make a solid contact into central Kansas, about 1600Km away.  So not to shabby. 

We all know hamsticks are a comprimise antenna and will never replace dipoles or other portable antennas, but in an emergency we'll take what we can get.

Hopefully the bands will start to pick up again before too long. It's not nice being back down with an SFI of 84 after what we have had in the last month.  Let's hope it improves a great deal before Field Day.