There is a problem with sending mail from our website directory. This problem appears to only effect mail sent to members with Gmail accounts.
The problem has been ongoing since 10th August.
I am investigating and will post an update once resolved.
Andrew
G0RVM
How many people know that our website has a members directory? You do, great 🙂 But do you know what can be done with it? No, read on….
Unsurprisingly our directory contains a list of all members and their contact information. 😉 All members receive a login account to the website when they become TSGARC members. This account can be used to publish articles or news items, such as this, but also to access the directory. When a website login account is created or removed the directory is also updated to ensure they are both aligned but unfortunately its a manual two-step process. Website updates to create member accounts and ensure the directory is aligned are performed by the Secretary or Webmaster, if you spot a problem with the directory please let them know.
The directory lets members identify the contact information of other members. But it also has two other nice features relating to email. The first allows members to email another individual member directly via the website. The second allows members to email an entire group of members. Let me explain. Each member has a role or position in the club. Chairman, Treasurer, Webmaster are examples of positions but there are others too. One really cool position is Members. Emailing the Members position will send an email to all current TSGARC members.
Another example. Lets say you wanted to email the Treasurer but you’re not sure who that is. Well, you can email the Treasurer position and let the directory and website work out who that is 🙂
In addition to simple information such as name, telephone, email etc the directory can contain other information such as a photograph. So, if you have a photo you are invited to add it to your entry in the directory. For an example see my entry 🙂
Access to the directory can be achieved by selecting the Member contact link from the TSGARC home page. Its the first item on the SUB-MENU which is located towards the top right hand side.
Hopefully this short update is useful.
Andrew
G0RVM
Webmaster
The RSGB SSB field-day takes place over the weekend of 5 & 6th of September. I agreed earlier in the year to organise something but now realise I am not available that weekend so organising a field event is difficult.
Would someone else like to organise this event?
To take part in the contest our station would need to comply with these RSGB guidelines.
Andrew
G0RVM
Last week I wrote about recent work that identified where my G3TPW Cobwebb antenna was resonating on each of its five bands (20m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m). Following on from that work G0MGM and myself spent a day recently adjusting my Cobwebb so that it was resonant around the SSB sections of each band and this article summarises that work.
The instructions supplied by G3TPW for his Cobwebb are excellent and identify the tuning effect of shortening/lengthening each dipole leg. For reference I have identified these below:
| Band | Change |
|---|---|
| 20m | 40kHz/cm |
| 17m | 50kHz/cm |
| 15m | 75kHz/cm |
| 12m | 100kHz/cm |
| 10m | 120kHz/cm |
What the instructions omit is whether the dipoles interact, whether they should be adjusted in any sequence (e.g. 20m before 17m) and the impact of extending/reducing the gap between each dipole leg (spanned by the string) upon resonance. These were all questions that were going through my mind prior to starting adjustment work and which drove the approach adopted.
The reactance, resistance and impedance data presented in Part 1 was collected using my MFJ-259b antenna analyser. The MFJ-259b is a basic analyser and does not have any capability for data logging or data export necessitating the collection of data at multiple manually sampled frequencies. This process was laborious and constrained the number of samples it was practical to collect and thus the accuracy of the overall result. As I foresaw the need to resample each of the five bands for each single adjustment, it clearly, was not going to be practical to use the MFJ analyser. Fortunately, a good friend, G0MGM, has a miniVNA analyser that can auto-sweep a band, log the results and export them in a CSV formatted file, which we later imported into Microsoft Excel. This capability made it practical to capture data samples, visualise and analyse the impact on each band of every change.
All graphs in this article may be enlarged by ‘clicking’ upon them.
Because a different analyser was used, two new sets of baseline data were captured with the antenna at 3m and 8.5m above ground. The lower height represents the height of the antenna when my mast is retracted. The baseline data presented in this article is that sampled at 8.5m. Measurements were taken in the radio room at the end of the RG-213 coax feeding the antenna.
It is interesting comparing the baseline results above with those captured previously using the MFJ analyser and presented in Part 1. It should be noted that the comparison was performed with the antenna at the same height, with the same coaxial feeder, but on different days, that the weather was similar and that on both occasions the antenna and its surroundings were completely dry. Furthermore it should be noted scales and colours vary thus some interpretation is required.
Based on experience of adjusting a Butternut HF-6V antenna, now made by DX Engineering, and a need to start somewhere, the decision was made to sequence adjustments from 20m, progressing to 10m.
After analysing baseline results it was decided to adjust the 20m, 17m and 15m elements. Starting with the 20m element we reduced the length of each leg by 2cm and resampled data across each of the five bands. Results showed that the change had a positive impact, raising the 20m resonant frequency by the amount expected with little or no change on any of the other bands. This was good news and was the first indication that there was little interaction between the five elements. We then repeated the process removing a further 2cm from each leg. Again the results were the same. i.e. the change on 20m was that expected and there had been little or no change on the others. The graph below is the final result of the two changes.
Next the 17m dipole element was adjusted, reducing each leg by 2cm. The process of sampling across all five bands was repeated and again it was found that the change had no significant effect upon the frequency of resonance for the other bands. This really gave confidence that each element could be adjusted independently and that no sequence of adjustment was necessary.
Only one change was necessary and it raised the resonance point to the frequency required.
Sticking with the original plan, although it was almost certain by now, the 15m element was adjusted reducing each leg by 1cm. This raised the resonant frequency to that required. This time some minor changes were noted to the point of resonance on the other bands, however, the change was very small.
The changes to 20m, 17m and 15m had necessitated the retying of the string between there individual leg elements. The string between the unchanged elements had remained unchanged and it was now observed that there was noticeably more slack in the wire at the leg ends for those elements. It was thought that this additional slack may be causing the very small changes observed.
With changes complete the results from sampling each of the five bands were analysed and found to be acceptable so again the antenna was lowered and the length of string on the unchanged elements reduced so as to tighten the wires slightly. The change in string length was small but afterwards it was noted the resonant frequency had raised a little on those band elements. This was expected as reducing the gap between each leg end adds capacitance.
The results for 12m and 10m are shown below.
Adjusting the Cobwebb proved to be much simpler than expected. Results showed that each dipole element could be adjusted without impacting other elements and that adjustment need not take place in any particular sequence. It was also found that frequency change per cm as specified by G3TPW in his instructions was accurate.
In writing this article it was realised that it would have been useful to capture the length between the ends of each element leg. i.e. the string length. When these can next be measured I will update this article with the information. Describing the tautness of the elements is difficult. They are neither taut nor slack, but ‘just right’. i.e. there is a little movement of the wire. Perhaps it is better to describe by stating that their tautness does not deform the cross shape of the fiberglass spreading arms.
Key to the success of the adjustment work was the miniVNA analyser and its ability to visualise and log sampled data. Without it, what took approximetly 5hrs would have taken much longer.
Finally, thanks to Rob, G0MGM, for his assistance and his miniVNA and enjoy the bottle of sake 😉
Andrew
G0RVM
I’ve had a G3TPW Cobwebb for almost a year but recently its moved location and is now on the top of a Total Mast Solutions 11m pneumatic mast. Because previously it was in a temporary installation I didn’t think much about ensuring that resonance on its five HF bands (20m, 17m, 15m, 12m & 10m) was where I wanted it to be. I just used a manual coupler (aka ATU) to ensure its match to the transceiver was close to 50 Ohms.
The antenna has been performing very well considering its very small size and has yielded worldwide contacts but I decided recently it was time to do some investigative work to see just where it was resonating and thus whether it could be further improved. I have an MFJ-259b antenna analyser which lets me identify the resistive and reactive components at a given frequency. However, and annoyingly, it doesn’t support any sort of automated band sweep or result logging capability. Therefore its necessary to take and record multiple individual measurements then manually enter these into a graphing tool (MS-Excel in my case) to visualise the results.
To provide a reference baseline I captured the resistive and reactive components both with the antenna at 3m and 10m above ground. As the results were similar I’ve included only those results when at the greater height and these are shown below.
Select each for a larger size.
In the coming days a good friend G0MGM who has a MiniVNA analyser has agreed to help. His analyser has two of the key capabilities my MFJ-259b lacks: Band sweep and result logging. The intention is to adjust each dipole individually to achieve resonance just where I want it. However, I’m not clear how the five dipole’s interact, I assume they must to some degree as they are closely spaced, or whether its best to adjust them in any sequence. i.e. 20m before 17m.
In part 2 of this post I hope to report what we found, the adjustment methodology and importantly the results.
Andrew
G0RVM
Tonight I had the latest edition of the Bradley Stoke and Patchway residents handbook drop through my door. Under ‘R’ and Radio I found the entry below. Well done guys 🙂 But should we also have a contact name and telephone number? Or perhaps something similar to the Community Radio entry? Mark?
Andrew
G0RVM
This is the third post in a three part series regarding the late May field weekend of the Thornbury and South Gloucestershire Amateur Radio Club (TSGARC).
So Tuesday arrived. Four days on site had passed very quickly. The final day was set aside for taking everything down, packing it away, clearing the site and getting home. No radio operation was planned. This proved a good choice as it was mid-afternoon when John finally left.
Just like the setup day, we had a good attendance and it didn’t take long for the tents to come down and packing to start. What took time was all the little things like tables, chairs, food etc not to mention the coax, antenna masts and guys… Anyway, by mid-afternoon everything was packed and the only evidence we had been there was the trampled grass. 🙂
The objective of the weekend was not just to setup a station and make contacts but to try things that we could not try at home where space or equipment are constraining factors and to facilitate the exchange of skills and knowledge between club members. Measured against these objectives, the weekend was a great success. Everyone who attended had a good time and the English bank holiday weather was kind to us.
The club was active on 2m, 6m, 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m and 80m making contacts around the world. In total we spoke to 19 countries excluding the UK. We did not generally participate in ‘rubber stamp’ contacts, most lasted several minutes, some significantly longer. The countries worked were:
The event had 2 x 2kW and 2 x 1kW petrol generators. The intention was to operate 1 or 2 of the 2kW units and the others would be used in case of failure. As it turned out one of the 2kW units failed but the other worked flawlessly so no others were needed. But just having one of the primary generators fail proved how important it was to have backups. The amount of petrol consumed was surprisingly low (approx. 40 litres) considering almost full day/evening use.
Almost everything went well but things of special note are:
Of course there were some things that didn’t go to plan or that could be done better next time:
As organiser of this event I would like to express my special thanks to the following:
Final thoughts
The message from those who attended was that this sort of event is something the club should do again before the year is out. We will have a rethink about catering and try something different next time. Possible options have already been identified, discussed and sound promising.
When we do this next? Well almost anytime is possible, but there is the RSGB VHF Field Day on the 4th and 5th of July and the RSGB SSB Field day on 5th and 6th September. We should also not forget the ARRL Field Day on June 27th and 28th….
Andrew
G0RVM
This is the second post in a three part series regarding the late May field weekend of the Thornbury and South Gloucestershire Amateur Radio Club (TSGARC).
The trouble with camping during May is it gets light early! Setup had been a long and busy day but the birds knew nothing of our endeavours and were chirping their happy, annoying song at first light. John (M3EQQ), despite slumming it at the house, was up just as early as the birds and made sure everyone was awake also 😉 To his credit he woke people with a cuppa but it was clear there was to be no sleepy lie-in… Mind you, it was going to be a busy day as there was food, rotor cable and plugs to purchase not to mention the completion of tasks outstanding from the previous day, delayed due to the extended time working upon the trailer tower.
Generally speaking the noise floor at field/portable sites is very low so you can hear almost everything, but making yourself heard is harder. For this event I wanted to make the club heard. I’d heard many good stories and good signals from stations around the world using hex beams, so I purchased a Hexbeam from Anthony (MW0JZE). This was fed with 400w from an Ameritron AL-811XCE amplifier. The result was fantastic, not only could we hear the DX but we could also work it 🙂
A large part of Saturday morning was spent assembling the hex. Yes, it took a while as I was careful to assemble it correctly and as per the YouTube video instructions. The antenna does not come with instructions which is a nuisance but the video instructions are excellent – just accessing them from a remote field is a little challenging… Next time, however, assembly will be much quicker.
After the hex was on the tower, John (M3EQQ) and I went to get the much needed food and cable to replace the damaged rotor control cable. The little castle town of Berkeley has some good shops so food was not a problem, but cable needed a drive further afield. Fortunately there is a branch of Attwoolls not far away and they were able to supply 30m of cable and new connectors. On our return it was clear the other members had been equally busy as we now had a full sized vertical 80m loop and a Beverage receive only antenna for the 80m band. Both the 80m loop and Beverage were connected to Rob’s (G4RNK) Kenwood TS-2000.
The Beverage was the creation of John (M0HFH) who had read much about its ability to overcome noise on the lower frequency bands; the field weekend gave the ideal opportunity to try a 1.2λ, 80m Beverage. Researching the many methods of construction John (M0HFH) came across some old papers published by the BBC research team at Crowley. This gave in-sight into the height of the antenna from the ground and some surprising information, higher is not always better!
The Beverage in various designs has been around since inventor Harold H. Beverage developed the antenna design based on designs used by Edmond Bruce at the Otter Cliffs US Transatlantic listening station in 1919. The antenna used during our field weekend was the simplest form of this design and consisted of a 9:1 home-made balun feeding a long wire (120m galvanised steel electric fence wire) terminated at its far end with a non-inductive resistor into a copper earth stake with 4 x 15m radials. A similar ground plane earth system was set up at the feed end to be the earth point for the coax feeding the radio. The antenna was set at 1.5m above the ground.
We attempted to match the Beverage terminating resistor to the earth system using a method adopted by W8JI which involved measuring the range (not the value) of SWR indicated on an MFJ-259 antenna analyser sweeping a frequency range from 1.8HHz to 7MHz and varying the termination resistor until the variation in SWR was minimised. Kyle (M6KBP) recorded the values of SWR in the form of a table whilst John (M0HFH) varied the terminating resistance using a switched resistance box; communications from one end of the Beverage to the other by 2m handheld. We settled for a termination resistance of 640 Ohms after some discussion of the results.
Listening to weak signals on the lower frequency bands, in particular 160m, 80m, 40m, the Beverage revealed a substantial reduction in background noise and an increased signal to noise ratio as compared to the TSGARC vertical with radials.
Rob (G4RNK) was responsible for the 80m loop. It was made from hard drawn, PVC coated, copper wire about 265ft in length. Its matching stub was made from 75 Ohm coaxial cable a quarter wavelength long, (66%). This matching stub was then connected to 50 Ohm coax which ran back to the TS-2000 transceiver in the radio tent. With a view to working stations to the East (Europe) and the West (USA and beyond!), the loop was orientated to face East/West with its nulls to the North and South. The feed point of the loop was 1ft above ground, the top of the antenna was at 30ft, suspended between to masts, so the mean height of the loop was 15ft for 80 the 80m band. This sort of antenna can be tuned for use on other bands with a transmatch antenna tuner.
The hexbeam replaced the 2m beam on the trailer tower as at 12kgs it needed a strong support. The tower will support something much heavier but the other masts would have been overloaded. It was raised to about 13m above ground where it pretty much remained for the rest of the weekend. Feeding the hex was an Icom IC-7200 and the aforementioned amplifier. The system worked faultlessly and some nice contacts were made, my personal favourite being Tokyo. Lots of contacts were made by myself and the mic was shared with John (M3EQQ) and Kyle (M6KBP). This gave John and Kyle the opportunity to see a capable station in operation and to talk with stations further afield.
Around 20:00hrs GMT about S3 of pulse type interference was observed from the West, this continued till we shutdown just after midnight. Interestingly the interference seemed to start around 14MHz and spread across all higher parts of the spectrum up to 50MHz. Higher frequencies were not checked. The interference was not observed on lower frequency bands – nothing was heard on 3.7MHz using the 80m loop. Swinging the hex to the East also greatly reduced the interference. In the adjacent field on the Western side there is a large overhead power line, but we understood this was not in operation… If the interference was emanating from the power line I would have expected it to hear it on 80m. A mystery, but there was speculation that it may be some farm machinery in the big shed located to the West.
Sunday morning dawned with another early call, cuppa and breakfast from John (M3EQQ). The remaining 10m masts were erected. With these we now had an impressive selection of antenna’s and the site looked great in the sunshine. In total there was the 12m trailer tower, 2 x 10m masts supporting the Tonna 2m and 6m antennas plus 2 x 12/10m masts supporting the 80m loop. With this selection of antennas it was a shame that we didn’t have more radio’s and operators. However, Rex (G4RAE) made use of the 5-element, 6m Yagi making several Morse contacts.
HF propagation was superb, strong phone contacts were had with Aruba on 20m, 17m and 15m, St. Helena and numerous other stations in the USA. It was clear that the hex, amplifier combination was delivering good performance. Band conditions remained excellent till shutdown soon after midnight. The mic was again shared with John and Kyle allowing them to make some excellent contacts. The interference noted the previous evening was not present till a similar time when it returned with exactly the same characteristics.
Shirley, John’s (M0HFH) partner, lent the club her wood burning fire. Its an excellent piece of kit that burns wood exceptionally well and provides lots of surface area on which to cook. So late in the afternoon, John (M3EQQ) started to barbecue chicken and sausages. Whilst we ate the food a friend of Rob’s (G4RNK) arrived with his quadcopter. The quadcopter had a small camera attached and despite it being a little windy good photo’s of the site were captured.
Monday was very different, the HF bands appeared to be in good shape for a few hours in the early morning when we had some great contacts, but soon after deteriorated leaving signals either well down on preceding days or non-existent. Andrew (G0RVM) took the opportunity to run an antenna workshop with Kyle (M6KBP). The workshop started with the basic principles of the dipole then progressed to calculating its size, construction and finally adjustments for resonance and on-air testing. The dipole was made for the 17m band and it clearly worked when compared with the hex. Another Foundation class member, Derek (M6xxx) got involved, helping Kyle with the physical construction of the dipole.
Nighttime arrived and conditions appeared to improve greatly. Again many contacts were made culminating with an excellent conversation between Kyle (M6KBP) and Ray (N4LEM) using his Collins HF-80.
Andrew G0RVM, John M0HFH and Rob G4RNK
Hi Andrew (G0RVM) here… I really enjoy working HF portable due to a home that’s in a noisy urban conurbation and the joy of being out in the country, often with seriously impressive scenery all-around. This post is about my recent purchase, a MW0JZE constructed G3TXQ Hexbeam antenna.
Up to now I’ve been using simple wire antenna’s such as monoband dipoles and delta loops strung over or between portable fibreglass telescopic masts when operating portable. Due to the exceptionally low noise floors found at portable sites I can hear just about anything if its there, but its difficult to get heard due to the negligible gain of simple antenna’s. Enter the hexbeam, a 2-element Yagi for 6m, 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m and 20m giving useful forward gain (approx. 3 to 3.5dBd), a good front to back ratio and deep side nulls that should help during crowded band conditions. For example, a few years ago I planted a multi band vertical on the beach of a Scottish island. Yes, the antenna worked well, but it was just impossible because of very strong signals from all directions. Having some directivity and more importantly some useful nulls should greatly help.
Of course antenna beam pattern is not everything when operating portable; other significant considerations are the collapsed size, weight & portability, the erected size and finally ease of assembly/disassembly. The hexbeam scores highly on all these characteristics. Conscious that the Thornbury and South Gloucestershire Amateur Radio Club (TSGARC), my club, had a field weekend during May I decided to take the plunge and get a hexbeam in time for the event. The TSGARC as a 12m trailer tower so supporting the hex would not be a problem.
The hexbeam is not a complicated antenna and quite frankly I could make one myself, however, I wanted more than a prototype antenna, I wanted something that would cope with the vagaries of the English climate and was robust. i.e. it would stay dry in a wet English climate and would withstand multiple rounds of assembly/disassembly. Importantly, I wanted something which when arriving at a portable location was dependable. There are a few manufacturers of commercial hex beams and each seems to do a fixed and a portable variant. The portable versions are lighter and designed to fold. As my primary use was to be portable, a portable version seemed the right choice… However, I wanted something that was also robust and which could be erected full-time if I ever got a property where that should be possible. So I went for a fixed version!
After some Internet research I opted for one constructed by Anthony (MW0JZE) partly because of his good website, partly because of the excellent Youtube construction video’s but also because when we spoke he was very helpful and had experience of portable operations.
His antenna arrived in a cardboard box, inside everything was wrapped, even double and triple wrapped in news paper. Not quite what I expected and a real nuisance to unpack, but hey, you only unpack it once, the packing worked well and its eco-friendly – none of that plastic packing which is such a nightmare to dispose off 🙂 At home there is nowhere to assemble the antenna but I checked that the major components were present and just hoped the smaller bits and pieces (cable clips, nuts etc) were all present as I’d only find out for sure at the field event.
I need not have worried as everything was present, Anthony had even included some extra ‘wing-nuts’ as he knew my intention was to use it portable. So it was a warm, sunny Saturday when I constructed the antenna in a large field with plenty of space. From the outset I had a good feeling about the antenna as the build quality of the parts I’d seen at home was high. The fiberglass spreader arms fitted together perfectly, the arms into the baseplate and the radius and diameter cords just dropped into place. Anthony had obviously taken great care in its design and build.
As mentioned before, assembly was done in a field so it was a little disappointing that there were no hardcopy assembly instructions. Fortunately I had good Internet access via a TSGARC members cellphone and thus I could watch the assembly YouTube instructions. What would be really nice is if Anthony could supply the videos on a CD or include some instructions. Had Internet access not been possible, I’m confident I’d have worked it out, but having the reassurance was nice.
The antenna has a sexy blue engraved baseplate with ‘G3TXQ’ and a diagram of a hexbeam. It also has a large arrow with no associated text… I constructed the antenna as per the video’s (which didn’t show the arrow) but in haste I assumed the arrow indicated the forward direction of the antenna and thus mounted it to the tower so that the arrow pointed North. Wrong. If constructed as in the video’s the arrow points towards the back of the antenna 😉 Anyway, it was terribly easy to fix. Just a 180 degree rotation of the stub mast that fixed the rotor to the tower. This change took about 5 mins and that included lowering and raising the tower!
I purchased the toroidal choke balun with the antenna and this fixed to the centre post with a plastic clamp. There was a minor misalignment of its fixing holes but nothing a very slight enlargement of the fixing holes didn’t sort. On air, the antenna performed as expected; it demonstrated reasonable f/b ratio and good nulls to the sides. It was fed with around 400w and we received good reports from countries such as Japan, Argentina, Aruba, the USA, St. Helena Is to mention a few. So it worked and better than a wire dipole would have done I’m sure 😉 Perhaps next time I’ll do some side-by-side tests.
I pondered for some time the best way to dismantle the antenna at the end of the field event. I didn’t want to completely dismantle the antenna but only dismantle sufficiently to allow it to be packed and transported. It was actually a simpler problem than I had first thought. The element wires were disconnected from the centre post; the radius and diameter cords were disconnected; the spreader arms were disconnected from the base plate, the spreader arms were disconnected from each other and placed next to each other then finally all spreader arm parts were brought together in a neat pile. Finally the mass of spreader arms and element wires were dropped into a bag. The baseplate was left attached to the centre post. Next time it should be just a matter of getting it out the bag and reversing the process described above… Time will tell. 🙂
A good strong bag, something about 170cm long and 60cm in diameter with carry handles and compression straps would be an excellent addition 🙂
Thanks for the antenna Anthony, I’m really looking forward to using it again and perhaps performing a more scientific comparison with another antennas.
Andrew
G0RVM
The Thornbury and South Gloucestershire Amateur Radio Club (TSGARC) held its first ever field weekend over the late May 2015 bank holiday weekend. This post is the first of three that describes what happened, what went well, not so well and thoughts for the next time….
Although the event was to take place over the Saturday, Sunday and Monday it was clear from early planning that additional time would be needed to establish then remove the camp, equipment and clear the site. Early planning also identified two key items essential to the success of the weekend: large, dry tents and toilet facilities. Fortunately the club, via John, had access to several 6m x 4m tents and had sufficient funds to hire a chemical toilet from Abbey Loos of Gloucester.
Another key feature of the event was a barbecue would be held on the Sunday afternoon assuming it was permitted by the notorious and traditionally wet bank holiday weekend weather. As it turned out, fortune smiled and the weather remained dry.
So, early planning done, 10 members arrived on the Friday morning at 10AM and work started to erect the 2 large tents. One was to be the radio/operating tent, the other cooking/hospitality etc. This two-tent idea was conceived so that noise and conversations could be kept to a minimum in the radio tent to provide a quiet environment for the operators. The 2 tents were erected in a non-overlapping ‘L’ shape with the apex towards the South West. The intention was that this would provide a space, sheltered from the wind, in which the BBQ could be held and a space, in the outside corner, for the 12m trailer tower. This configuration proved successful.
With ample hands the erection of the tents proved a quick and easy job. Attention then turned to getting the stove connected, for that much needed cuppa, and moving the trailer tower to its chosen position. Around this time someone noticed that the pin which secured the winch drum to its assembly was missing rendering the winch unusable. Show during transit this pin had come loose and fallen out. The unusable winch would have been a disaster had we been in a remote location, however, the land owner was able to provide a suitably sized bolt which saved the day. A quick phone call later and John (M0HFH) had the necessary information to machine another pin which he installed the following day. We were lucky John was at work and had the time to make a replacement. Thanks John.
The second key item, the chemical toilet, arrived around lunchtime which was excellent timing and just when it was needed 😉 Compared to the loos I’ve experienced before, at music festivals such as Glastonbury, it was spotless – a real palace! The only negative was that it didn’t have any loo roll – the holder was empty… Fortunately, loo roll was one of the items early planning had identified and thus we had a good supply – happy camping and second disaster avoided 🙂
As it turned out the most time consuming task during setup was the elevation of the trailer tower. This was not expected and occupied pretty much the whole of the afternoon, completing just in time for the clubs VHF net at 20:00hrs. One of the first renovation jobs the club on the trailer tower was to replace all winch cables as they were in poor condition. In doing this job someone had the bright idea to replace the old cables with string so that when it came to installing the new cables they could be installed quickly and correctly. This was a great idea, but it was predicated on the assumption that the old cables were correctly installed! 
As it happened they weren’t and we thus spent hours re-routing the new steel cables so they did not catch or rub unduly on the lattice members. It was just as well that we had a generous helping of tools, spanners etc as this could have been the next disaster! Anyhow, all turned out well and we got the TSGARC Yaesu G-600RC rotor installed and a 9 element Yagi (Part No. 220089) from Tonna for the 2m band installed on the top. Tower raised, the antenna was at about 13m above ground. With about 30 minutes to spare we were setup and ready for the clubs VHF net.
Using a highly directive antenna for a net is not ideal but on this occasion the majority of members who normally take part where in the field. The remainder, were fortunately, located along roughly the same beam heading 🙂 Excellent signal reports were obtained from all stations. Actually, that was as no surprise as 50w into an antenna with 13dBi gain at 13m above ground is going to work well! The antenna was also deliberately attached to the tower to be vertically polarised thus aligning with the convention that VHF, FM activity is vertically polarised.
At this point its worth mentioning an issue we had with the rotor. Just prior to the weekend Paul (M0ZMB) had reconditioned the clubs rotor, installing new multi-core cable and some nice weather resistant plugs. Unfortunately, the length of cable from the rotor to the first plug was less than the height of the tower and this meant the cable could not be placed in the towers cable cleats without snagging. So instead the cable was left to run free by the side of the tower moving about slightly in the light breeze. On one occasion when raising the tower no one spotted that the plug had become snagged by a lattice cross member. The resulting load ripped the cable from the plug and shattered the connector. The electrical connections were easy to repair but it was clear that a new, longer length of cable was needed that could be run through the cleats without snagging and thus an emergency shopping trip was needed the following day 🙁
And that was pretty much the first day – setup day.
Andrew
G0RVM