Out and About

I had the opportunity to go portable again today.The weather was superb and the nice cool breeze on top of the mountain was very welcome. This time I took my old camera tripod and used this rather than the little Buddistick tripod. It was much more stable and the antenna stayed upright.

Here are the things I needed to carry from the car to the operating spot. Its lucky that it was just a 5 minute walk. The Buddistick, a flask of tea and some snacks are in the rucksack along with my 2 metre handie and the MFJ ATU.

I also gave in and took an ATU with me, which made things a lot easier as the Buddistick can be difficult to tune. Here is my Portable shack.

I had a few HF contacts, one on 40 metres, a couple on 20, although there was a contest on and two on 17 metres, a nice band which I should use more. Although the Buddistick is designed to operate on 40 metres, results are rather disappointing although if you consider the size of the antenna perhaps this is not surprising.A better option would perhaps be a dipole or doublet supported by a fibreglass pole for the lower bands. I may make such an antenna up, but no doubt if I do I won't get a chance to do any more portable ops this year! The only problem with such a setup would be finding a way to support the pole when there are no trees or fences nearby.

2 metres was very quiet from this location today. Surprising as it was the weekend and a really good VHF location. In the 1990s when I used to operate from this spot you could spent all day on 2 metres FM, no longer, even the repeaters were quiet-is this a sign of the times?

And finally here is the view from the operating spot. I could keep an eye on my car from here (the one on the left) although this is a quiet location.