Radio Preppers

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Alpha_Greywolf on April 03, 2019, 10:18:17 AM

Title: Hello from North Wales
Post by: Alpha_Greywolf on April 03, 2019, 10:18:17 AM
Hello,
I'm based in North Wales, UK
My interests lay in heading towards grid independence for comms and emcomms.

Currently using a Yaesu FT817ND with homebrew inverted V on a 6m fishing pole.

My QTH is at sea level but has mountains on 3 sides... to say coverage is fairly limited would be understated.


I'm looking forward to getting to know the members of the forum and learning from your experiences, then sharing my own as I push forward with my experiments (or playing with wire).
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: gil on April 03, 2019, 02:41:17 PM
Welcome aboard :-) Look up NVIS, quite useful in your case...

Gil.
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: Alpha_Greywolf on April 03, 2019, 03:36:36 PM
Thank you Gil,

Yes, NVIS looks like a way forward.
I have to work out how to get a 80/40m antenna in a garden with less square meters than a 6man tent. :o

My 40m inverted V wouldn't look out of place in a Picasso exhibition, I have to make the dipole arms so contorted to fit the space.
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: gil on April 18, 2019, 02:27:21 AM
What about a square loop?

Gil.
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: Alpha_Greywolf on April 18, 2019, 04:03:46 AM
Square loop could work and is one I'm looking at, along side the half-wave end fed.
I do have a small (dis)advantage, my QTH is over Sandy soil as such the ground losses are low... but getting a good earth is like catching fog in a bucket.
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: gil on April 19, 2019, 07:59:52 AM
The half-wave end-fed would solve your ground problem, but you would need a pretty tall mast or tree... I wouldn't worry too much about the ground with a full size horizontal loop... You might just have to try...

Gil.
Title: Re: Hello from North Wales
Post by: Alpha_Greywolf on April 19, 2019, 04:26:06 PM
Try


That is the fun of amateur radio, we have a licence to experiment