New Tri Bander

Well the new 6m/2m/70cms vertical is finally in place, it was put up with the kind assistance of local amateur GW3FSP.

The weak point in these antennas is, in my opinion, the single nut or screw that holds the antenna to its support tube. You can install the brackets and clamp the antenna up as tightly as you like but if that screw fails you have a problem.

  You can just see the all important screw directly below the radials. The antenna itself is a "Sharmans" branded V2000. I imagine it is effectively a copy of the Diamond V2000, whether the quality is any different-time will tell.

The little Watsom W30 vertical I took down served me well, it is still in good order and I may use it as a backup antenna in the loft or even take it portable.


It is currently connected up to my Elderly 2 metre FM rig, although I dug out  the Yaesu FT857 which I use for portable work to test things on 6 metres and 70 cms. Indications are that this new antenna has a bit more gain on 2 metres plus of course gives me the ability to use the 6 metre band, although I have pretty much missed out on the sporadic E season!!

I am still debating whether I can justify another rig in the shack to cover 6/2 and 70. I could use the FT857 I suppose that normally stays packed away for the odd portable outing. The funny thing is I was never that keen on the 857 in the shack, its display is rather small and it is a little fiddly to use in my opinion. The Icom 706 I have in the car is better in that respect. An Icom 706MK2g would be nice, or even an Icom 7000 (but these seem very expensive). In any event I will also need a duplexer to split between 6 metres and vhf/UHF

First the bad news.................

Switching on my 2 metre rig today I noticed a complete absence of signals. Ok I know 2 metres is quiet around here, but I had just come into the shack minutes after pulling up on the driveway where I had been listening to a QSO on the mobile 2 metre rig. Trying to transmit revealed the problem- an infinity SWR. The antenna was fine yesterday- I had a number of local QSOs with it last night. Its still on the mast, no visual  signs of anything wrong but it looks like its a victim of the fairly high winds we have had over the last few days. Maybe the cable feeding the antenna has broken loose, maybe the Watson X300 which I have been using (and which always looked a bit fragile to me) has given up. Its been up there for 3 years without giving any trouble so I guess I can't complain too much! Anyway I had intended to replace the pole which the antenna sits on with a thicker/stronger one so now I will have to get on with it. I will be ordering the new aluminium poles in a week or so. Then I will have to wait until ta clear calm day, hopefully when the next door neighbour is not in his garden(!) and do some antenna maintenance. Until then I have a small dual band vertical in the loft which will be fine for local QSOs but I know that it won't work for at least one of my regular VHF contacts where the path between us is not too good.

The better news is a new toy has arrived for me. I have been reading quite a bit lately about a new dual band minature handset from the Chinese manufacturer Baofeng. At £37 from Hong Kong including postage and a dual band antenna I couldn't resist. Mine arrived 10 days after placing the order.

Unpacking the radio and fitting the battery was a surprisingly tricky process. Although I have read a couple of reviews I hadn't expected it to be quite so fiddly. Eventually I managed to get the battery fitted and the back cover of the rig correctly locked back in place. As I said I haven't read of anyone else having problems with this so maybe its just me!

The rig is very compact, you can see it here next to my other Chinese dualbander.

Its also very slim

First impressions are that it seems to be a lot easier to program than my other handie, the manual as usual is of limited use but luckily a few minutes with the rig and the menu system starts to make sense.
The supplied earpiece/mic that came with my rig is of no use- as soon as you try to transmit with it the rig locks in transmit mode- I think other users have also had this problem.

All in all though this seems a nice little rig. I haven't used mine in anger yet (its still charging up) but will post more finding soon.

The Enemy Within!

For some time I have been aware that one of the PCs in the shack does generate a little interference on the HF bands. However I have recently noticed that I have a constant carrier of the 2 metre band on 145.575 Mhz. The carrier is around S4 and always seems to be there.

Using my two metre handheld the other day I tracked down the source. Placing the handheld next to the power supply for my LCD monitor the carrier went up to full scale on the S-Meter. Unplugging the power the supply caused it to disappear.All is not lost as the monitor needs a 12 volt DC supply so if I make up a connector lead it should run quite happily from one of the shack supplies.

HF conditions do seem to be improving. Yesterday I worked several stations on PSK31 on the 18Mhz band which seemed very lively. Let us hope this is a sign of things to come.

I continue to be fairly impressed with the Wellbrook loop. From its temporary location I am able to rotate it using the famous "Armstrong" method. I have found it is possible by careful positioning to almost elimate the PLT i get on some bands. The loop also allows me to reduce a lot of local QRN. It is very directional below about 5Mhz or so. If you have two medium wave stations on the same frequency it is possible to null one out by rotating.