Month: August 2012

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RaDAR – EFHW Antenna height

One thing I’ve learnt from this excercise it that “It’s a waste of time” getting the End Fed Half Wave Antenna as high as possible.

It works extremely well at arms height too. I hook the wire onto a branch / twig of a tree and tie down each end. In this picture the antenna was used to make contact with ZS5XT, easily 800km away (On 40m in the afternoon) using 5 Watts.

The antenna, at the “apex” was barely 2 meters above the ground!

During the “One contact per kilometer moved ” excercise, a distance of just under 1000 km was worked with relative ease under very similar conditions.

73 de Eddie ZS6BNE

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RaDAR – One contact per kilometer moved

During the SARL’s CW contest yesterday, I took the ooportunity to test the “One contact per kilometer moved” concept.

The band was alive with activity, so much so that I realised I need CW filters for my FT-817!

I logged the course using my Garmin 305 running watch. Unfortunately I must have pressed the stop button after the second deployment and lost a little of the course but not serious!

Here is a link to the track. Press the play button. Where you see the ballooon zigzagging, that’s when I was putting up the antenna.

Choose the “Aerial” view for the best experience.

http://connect.garmin.com/player/215343305

73 de Eddie ZS6BNE

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RaDAR – Tracking hams in the field:

Tracking hams in the field:

Log onto aprs.fi on your Internet browser.

Enter any of the following criteria ….

which means RaDAR operators will give their positions in any one of these formats sent by voice or morse code.

For example, I use HamGPS on my Android cellphone. It gives me my position as kg34ac19mi ….

So I’ll say, Grid, Kilo Golf Three Four Alpha Charlie One Niner Mike India

Type that in and you’ll see where I did one of my contests 

Choose satellite view for the best experience