Steve M6HOB here. I’m relatively new to amateur radio, having obtained my Foundation Licence a year ago and although I attend the Wednesday club nights, I hadn’t got round to buying any radio kit for my station. I have a very old ICOM 2m rig in my Land-Rover, but it’s not much use for general work with pre-selected frequencies only.
I’m currently studying for my Intermediate licence, and building a Walford Electronics “Berrow” QRP CW transceiver as the obligatory project. The club’s tutors Peter (G4OST) and Paul (M0ZMB) have been really helpful guiding me on the build, especially as it’s a fairly advanced project for the intermediate and a radio novice. Construction stalled once I’d completed the receiver side of the kit, as I hadn’t got an aerial up. Cue a friend and club member Andrew (G0RVM) stepping up and spending his Saturday afternoon to help me set up a 1/2 wave dipole on 30 metres / 10 MHz. Despite the bitter cold, we put up a wooden fence post at one end of my garden, and bolted a 3 metre high steel antenna mast from ScrewFix with an eye bolt at the top to run a cord through. The mast is really sturdy and great value, plus you can potentially stack them and go to 4.5 or 6 metres high, though I’m not sure how much tension one could safely put on the aerial wire at that height without guying the top of the mast.
Andrew kindly lent me a 1:1 balun whilst I await delivery of a new one from a well known supplier in Staines. What a nice chap! 🙂
The other end of the dipole is supported on the apex of my garage roof, which puts the centre conveniently close to my study window, keeping the RG58 feeder fairly short. A few minutes work in the loft to run the RG58 up through the wall and out of the soffit vent, and the job was done!
Andrew also brought along his MFJ antenna analyser, so we could tune up the antenna. The wire hangs about 4m off the ground, rather than at least 7.5 metres for a 1/4 wave, partly because to go any higher would put the wire in the midst of a large oak tree and dense branches. We got it resonant but the impedance of the antenna is 25 ohms at resonance in the band centre. Not great, but workable with an ATU, and it seems to receive well across the band, I heard some CW at +20dB on my FRG100.
Anyway, back to the subject line of the post; it’s brilliant to be able to draw on the expertise, kit and friendship of the club members. Someone’s always ready to lend a hand…
73’s
M6HOB