My vertical got a new base today.

It was hard work.  I had to carry the pieces of timber (weight about 20 kg each) three flights of stairs up + push them through the skylight.

The concept:

The execution:

The result:

Day two of VK9MT Melish reef

Must be "a lucky bloke"

The last two were added this morning.  The 30 m QSO on a first call... (he was not busy) and the 40 m contact after about five calls..
The combination of K3 + P3 works it's magic.

Melish reef VK9MT is QRV

With great signals on 20 m this afternoon.  The boys must have some difficulties to overcome to get going.  This is one of the biggest pile-ups I've seen:

Lot of callers, but very orderly..

Called about a dozen of times before getting in the log.

Good luck guys.

Little later this afternoon I was able to work them again on 15 m... the pile-up was not as great...  mainly JA stations.  The op is fast... Well done es 73

Well must be my lucky day, ten minutes later I worked them on 12 m SSB on a first call...
Mind you... after all they are "at our doorstep".

This is a first class "pile up".

Listening around for the TX5G Austral island DX expedition I found this:

I guess it can't get any more busy.

Russian DX contest.

I've missed out on John Moyle contest this weekend... (bother)... so I needed some contesting fix.

I've just spent two hours of fun on the Russian DX contest:

 

Just two hours of fun... In the middle of the afternoon I felt that I need to reward myself with little of red wine... While I was sipping I've started the radio and tuning around the 20 m band I saw the contest going... Set up the N1MM (only about a minute) and of I went...  Sipping red and contesting.

 

I gave myself a limit of one glass of red and 100 contacts... All accomplished in about two hours.

 

    Band    QSOs    Pts  DXC   OBL
          14      99     806   24       34
       Total      99     806   24       34


            Score : 46,748

All good fun.

Commonwealth contest

Here is my modest effort:

Band         QSOs    Pts       Cty   Sec
         3.5       4      100         4      0
           7      30      670        24    2
          14     231    2295     54    3
          21     130    1640     47    3
          28      54     945       34    0
       Total     449    5650  163    8

            Score : 5,650

I happen to listen on some of the other competitors frequencies to learn more about their operating techniques.  I was quite amazed that operators in rural areas could hear much better than I could here in the "big smoke".

From the previous post I was hoping to give the 40 m ground plane antenna a good workout, however the action was elsewhere.

Interesting rules: http://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2014/rberu.shtml

(b) The “latitude factor” will be re-calculated each year based on published scores: for each hemisphere, the highest-scoring team total for each of the last three years will be used to give an overall total and the factor will be calculated as the ratio of the northern to the southern grand totals rounded down to the nearest two decimal places. 


It was a good fun and thanks to all who called.

73
Patrick

Will it be a secret weapon or will it be a "flop"???

I had in my storage for quite some years now, old Hustle 5B-TV vertical.  In some contests my 40 meter band performance was less than ideal.  With the BERU coming this weekend I had plans to put it up and test it.

It is temporary installation for now.  If it works... it will stay.  Have to of course build better base for it.

At the moment there are five 40 m radials.  Will consider the alternatives in the future.

I still have about two days to tune it up and "fiddle".  Tomorrow may add some more radials... Can't hurt... eh?

It hears about the same as the OCF dipole.  The amplifier is happier with it than with the dipole.

So far it is promising.  Wish me good luck.

As far as luck goes:

About 20 minutes after I published the blog... Sydney was hit by a storm... squall.  Not much rain, but the wind was strong and the whole show lasted no more than 15 or 20 minutes.  When I looked up the antenna was not there... it toppled over.  OUCH.

Too late in the day to get up and initiate salvage (that is what I had on my mind).

How lucky one can be:

Early today I drove to a fishing tackle shop and purchased strong mono-filament fishing line to  use as guy wires for what I thought was left of the antenna.  When I opened the hatch - oh what a joyful sight:

The antenna was intact, have fallen on the guy rope and dipole.  So there is hope after all. 

73
Patrick