Sunday, 9 December 2012

ARRL 10m Contest

The bands are not in the best of shape this weekend, but the ARRL 10m Contest is on so I thought I'd try and catch a few contacts to see how the new HF antenna is working....and it seems to be working well.  I do know that I'm going to have to put up a dedicated 15m dipole as the 80m OCF will not tune 15m at all, it just doesn't like it.

So far I'm working a lot of mid-west and west coast stations as well as many South Americans. BUT.....I did manage to snatch 5T0SP out of thin air last night on 20m, after many days of trying, and got him on the first call...which made my evening.

There does not seem to be very many European stations on the air at the moment, at least if they are I'm not hearing them. 

The next big test will be the RAC Winter Contest on December 29th.  Hopefully all the bugs will be out of the station and antennas by then.
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9 December 2012 at 15:01

    Hi Bill...
    Welcome back on the air...

    What type of Balun are you using with your OCF dipole? I built one and had to add a twin lead tuning stub for 15m because I was feeding it with a 4:1 balun. Seems that 15m and 80m can react with eachother...

    I can send you some drawings if you want...

    73bob

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    Replies
    1. Blogmaster9 December 2012 at 17:46

      Bob,

      Nice to be back on the air!

      I'm using a 4:1 balun like you. Can't get the antenna to tune 15m if my life depended on it. If you have drawings for a modification I'd love to see them!!

      73,
      Bill VE3CLQ

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