Apr 07 2019
April. The Sporadic E season is about to start. And since my last antenne for 50 and 70 MHz didn’t survive a storm it is time for a new one. This time I bought the 5070OWA9 fom EAntenna at the local Hamshop. It is a 4-element antenna for 50 MHz and a 5-element antenna for …
May 14 2018
Last week a new antenna for 23cm arrived. It’s the SHF-design 67-element (5 meter boom) from Wimo. It should give about 20 dBd gain and will replace the borrowed 23-elements Tonna. I hope that this beam, in combination with the Gemnini amp, gives me enough punch to work stations more than 500 kilometer away. I …
Jan 20 2018
Last week, storm hit the Netherlands with speeds up till 128 km/h. My temporary mast went down. A new base is ready to be mounted. This time with more counterpose and guy wires. The Moxon for 50 and 70 MHz needs some new aluminium. Besides that (and the bent platform) no damage to the roof.
May 08 2017
Last weekend I’ve performed some antenne maintenance. The LNA’s for 144 and 432 MHz are in place. I also mounted a small 15-elements antenna for 1296 MHz (23cm). During the contest last weekend I was able to make a QSO with Belgium, Germany and England with only 10 Watts of power and no LNA. I even …
Apr 26 2017
Today the preamps for 144 and 432 MHz arrived from Wimo. They are manufactured by the German SHF-Elektronik and powered via the coax-line (My Icom IC-9100 supports 12 volt over coax). Both units have a VOX unit so no need for a seperate PTT-line (for now). Now I only have to find some time to …
Feb 05 2017
Today I’ve made some progress by replacing the antenna tower on the roof. It’s now rotatable. The Diamond X6000 has been replaced for the X5000 so the total length doesn’t exceed the 5 meter due to regulations to keep it license free without the need for a building permit. The 9-element LFA for 144 MHz and the …
Oct 29 2015
A few months back I switched from a magnetic loop antenna to a vertical one. There were two main reasons to do so. The first one is the ability to be able to remotely tune the antenna. With the I3VHF-loop I wasn’t able to. The second reason was to have support for the 80 (and soon …
Apr 20 2015
I’m busy building an inverted L antenna. Going about 10 meters up and 10 meters horizontal. This gives me the possibility to work on the 80-meter and 160-meter band, using a CG-3000 tuner. I’m currently using about 2x 12 meters of wire as counterpose. This will be a bit more in the near future, but …
Apr 13 2015
Some pictures from the MLA-T Magnetic Loop Antenna. You can see the stepper motor (with 1:600 delay), the feedlines from the N (Yes, N, not PL) connectors and the extension capacitor with shunt for operations on the 160-meter band.
Apr 11 2015
PI6ATS, a locat ATV repeater, has a new VHF-antenne. The operators used an old indoor horizontal loop / halo antenna for audio reception on 144.7625 MHz. This wasn’t the best situation, since many people had a way stronger signal on 13cm then on VHF, if the repeater could receive a signal (1750 HZ tone) at …
Apr 11 2015
After cleaning the garage yesterday, I found the – after one year still boxed – MLA-T Magnetic Loop Antenna. Hope to have time this weekend to test things out. First thing to do is find a good point to fix the coupling loop, since this model has no gamma match like mentioned on the Wimo …
