I have recently return from a holiday to the South coast of England. I felt it would be great fun to operate WSPR from the holiday cottage that overlooks Start Bay. It is a wonderful location. With fantastic sea views. So I was keen to see what spots I could get.
I took along my old IC 706 but did not have an antenna suitable for HF. I did however have a mobile whip that I could press into service. At least put it on to the car and see how well that would work. I didn't know where it would be possible to install an antenna otherwise. Looking around the cottage I realized that it would be possible to suspend the mobile whip from the guttering.
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| The antenna hanging from the gutter |
So I set about doing this, as you can see from the picture. It was quite close to the cottage and had no ground plane. So I was not sure how well it would work or how or where it would match. But I discovered that it matched quite well around about 10 MHz. So the choice was obvious, I would use the antenna on 30 Metres. I had already reduced the output power from the 706 to just one Watt. So with one Watt, a tablet and a makeshift antenna I gave 30 Metres a try. To my amazement the first spot came from Australia, the next from North America. Quite something for one watt and a lashed up antenna. I continued to WSPR on 30 Metres for the following two days, but then decided to try 20 Metres and retuned the antenna slightly. I found the results were not as good. Seems as if 30 Metres is a good band, one I have not tried before.
Although it was interesting to see where I could reach on HF I decided that Two Metres would be worth a try as well. But as I did not have an antenna with me for Two I had to set about making a dipole which I did using a plastic coat hanger and some stainless steel rod. Listening around it seem to recieve signals fairly well from the high vantage point overlooking the sea. So I decided to post on the WSPR Facebook page that I was operating from an alternative address on the South coast of the UK.
I don't know how legal it is to operate / A when you cannot identify yourself to 6 digit QRA locator, as licensing conditions require, so I went to the trouble of putting on the WSPR website that I was actually operating /A thereby letting anybody caring to take the trouble to look up my call that I was operating away from home. I'm not sure, as I said, whether this is legal, but I did it anyway. I think there must be many people who perhaps stretch the licensing conditions a little bit using WSPR, but I don't think that these infringements are anything other than slight twisting of the rules. For example, leaving your station running while you go up top of the garden or are in bed sleeping. I wonder whether strictly speaking this is within licensing conditions. Let's hope OFCOM are happy.
Unfortunately, the results on 2 Metres were disappointing with no spots whatsoever even though a station in north France was beaming my direction. I transmitted for several days but he heard nothing of me. Power output on 2 Metres was just 10 Watts, antenna was a dipole.
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| The setup |
Some spots......
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| Some spot on 30 Metres |
