Although we are still in the blind about when the world will open up again enough to make the Swains DXpedition happen, we like to thank all our sponsor and support for their trust in us and patience for the thing to come. Reguarly we still receive new or addtional support from private sponsors; THANK YOU!
Make a virtue of necessity…..
Almost a year ago we were fully equipped and packed. Ready to go to Swains.
The unfortunate COVID pandemic caused this plan to be postponed.
In the months before our planned operation, a 160m T loaded vertical was built.
An 18m fiber pole from Spiderbeam will house the 16.5m vertical wire.
Matching is accomplished with a coil/hairpin match.
Last year summer we have set it up to complete the tuning procedure and check for possible improvements. All was fine but the “on the air and in real life” box had still to be ticked. So we decided to take part in the CQ160m CW contest to give the antenna a good work out. The goal was to test the antenna and have contest fun.
The vertical was set up at our local VERON club, the Dutch radio society.
On a large abandoned soccer and athletics field the antenna was raised and a fair amount of radials were laid out. Just to be equipped with a RX antennas during the contest, an EWE to the west and a 120m long BOG to the east were rigged up as well.
The antenna just worked great.
Being a vertical, the high angle signals from surrounding countries were OK, but where it really shined was on low angle and DX.
In 20 hours operating time, 875 QSO’s were made into 66 DXCC counties and 25 states of the U.S. During the contest some Caribbean stations were active and they could be worked very well and I had no issues to break a contest pile up.
It even gave me 6 new countries on topband.
All in all a good test for our antenna to be used on Swains.
73, Martin PA4WM
Swains2020 160 T loaded vertical adjusted
Hi All,
In the beginning of the year, just a few days before packing all antenna gear at Ronald’s place, I had the 160m vertical rebuild but not tested and adjusted.
Today we had a beautifull summersday. Perfect to set it up and adjust the lenghts and hairpin coil/match to the right frequency.
That saves time after arrival.
So, alltough we are all waiting for things to develope in a direction we all hope for, preparations continues HI.
Greetings from Holland.
Martin PA4WM
