After a miserable wet winter it's been nice to see some high pressure weather over us recently, and DRY !
I think we have been getting webbed feet, my weather station recording rain every day for something like 42 days in a row, and now it's been dry enough to get the mower around the lawns to make them look more tidy.
Over the winter I have built a new'Trans4m transverter kit for 70MHz and with only low power out iof it, added a G4DDK amp, and feed that into a Pye A200 linear amp (converted from M1 band 100MHz) down to 4 metres, so now have about 40w output.
Over the last few days there has been the odd slight lift in tropo vhf conditions, a few beacons have been audible or stronger than normal, and for the first time I heard the ON0VHF 70cm beacon on 432.450MHz.
Slightly disappointed that there has not been a more widespread lift yet, but will have to wait to see what happens when the high pressure drifts away.
In the mean time I'm trying to decide what improvements to make to the aerials, I need to rebuild the 50MHz Moxon and get it back up for the sporadic-E season, and thinking of putting my previous 2m yagi back up phased with the Powabeam to make a 9/9 pair. At least the weather is more conducive for some outside tinkering.
I think we have been getting webbed feet, my weather station recording rain every day for something like 42 days in a row, and now it's been dry enough to get the mower around the lawns to make them look more tidy.
Over the winter I have built a new'Trans4m transverter kit for 70MHz and with only low power out iof it, added a G4DDK amp, and feed that into a Pye A200 linear amp (converted from M1 band 100MHz) down to 4 metres, so now have about 40w output.
Over the last few days there has been the odd slight lift in tropo vhf conditions, a few beacons have been audible or stronger than normal, and for the first time I heard the ON0VHF 70cm beacon on 432.450MHz.
Slightly disappointed that there has not been a more widespread lift yet, but will have to wait to see what happens when the high pressure drifts away.
In the mean time I'm trying to decide what improvements to make to the aerials, I need to rebuild the 50MHz Moxon and get it back up for the sporadic-E season, and thinking of putting my previous 2m yagi back up phased with the Powabeam to make a 9/9 pair. At least the weather is more conducive for some outside tinkering.