Currently viewing the tag: "contesting"

Beverage Antennas at TF4M

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I have finished the Beverage antenna project for the time being.

I built 4 bi-directional Beverage antennas ranging from 170m to 380m long.

The antennas are connected into the radio shack via 5000 feet of RG-6 CATV cable entering via a patch panel and fed into a K9AY RAS8x2 matrix antenna switch which then feeds the 8 directions available into two transceivers.

The picture shows the center lines of the main lobe of each antenna direction. The lobes are quite broad especially on the lower frequencies, so I believe I have relatively good coverage.

Size Does MATTER!

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I have acquired a few rather large insulators.   I believe I will use them for the 160M transmit antenna.

The insulator in the photos is 150cm long and weighs more than 30kg.

Shack Progress

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One operating position is ready – position B which has the control unit for all antennas.   Some work remains, dressing cables, installing computers and building brackets for Bandpass Filters etc.

 

Vertical antenna foundation

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I have begun the work of re-building the Vertical antenna recovered last winter.   Today I installed the two tonne concrete block foundation and moved the 6 concrete anchor blocks into the area.

The XYL is not happy with the location chosen for the antenna.  I will have to find another spot to put it… 8-)

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New Radio Shack progress

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Most of the cabling work is done. Electric power has been installed, 2x50A via shielded cable and over 20 circuit breakers. The Matrix Strip Line Antenna Switch has been connected, and receive antenna cabling is close to finished. The RX antenna patch panel is installed and connected. 8 receive antenna cables are routed from the patch panel into the Radio Shack and will be connected to a K9AY RAS8x2 receive antenna controller.

cabling
cabling

Equipment room cabling is progressing. The Matrix switch is connected and RX antenna patching is also complete. 2 x 50A Power has also been installed with shielded cabling.

48 Photos

New Radio Shack under construction

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I am still working on the construction of the new radio shack. The carpenters are finally finished and all that remains to be done is to paint, install power and lighting and build an operating table which will be 8 meters long.

The amplifiers will be located in the equipment room where the antenna switching will also take place with a Delta Electronics 100KW remote Strip Line Matrix.

I took some photos today to show the progress of the work.

Some older photos:

The 2008 CQ WW DX Contest

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CW: November 29–30
Starts 0000 GMT Saturday Ends 2400 GMT Sunday

Full rules may be found here .

With the assistance of the TF Group who came to operate the contest in the Multi Operator Single Transmitter category, we completed a vertically polarized Delta Loop antenna close to the sea, just hours before the contest started.

CQ Worldwide DX Contest, CW    

Call: TF4M
Operator(s): TF4M, TF3KX, TF3UA, TF3Y
Station: TF4M

Class: M/S HP
QTH:
Operating Time (hrs): 48

Summary:
 Band  QSOs  Zones  Countries
——————————
  160:  544    13       56
   80: 1017    20       71
   40:  677    17       66
   20:  721    15       52
   15:   57     9       24
   10:    0     0        0
——————————
Total: 3016    74      269  Total Score = 1,635,767

Club:

Comments:

80m proved to be our best band. Top band good as well.
No 10m opening this year but a few Q’s on 15.
TF4M station improving year by year.
The 11 new Beverage antennas performed well and reception overall exceptional.
All equipment performed flawlessly and we all had a good time.

 
tf4m and tf3ua
 
TF4M, TF3UA and Birta (Magyar Vizsla)  hard at work.  (hardly working? :-) )
 
 
 
tf3ua     TF3UA at work.
 
 
tf4m       TF4M at work.
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Surplus Hardline Coax

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Today I received some surplus Hardline coax.  This will be used for the 700 meters (2300 feet) run to the planned 160M vertical antenna – N6LF Lazy-H.

heliax

 

heliax

 

heliax

 

heliax

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Scandinavian Activity Contest CW 2008

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CQ SACThe 50th Scandinavian Activity Contest was held between 1200 UTC, September 20 to 1200 UTC September 21.

I took part in the contest in the category Single Operator, Single Band, High Power.

Condititons were mostly non-existent, it felt like I was using a Dummy Load for antennas at times.  I spent 10 hours 38 minutes in the contest out of the 24 hour allowable period.

summary

rates

distribution of continents

Single Op./Single TX/Single Band/14 MHz [SINGLE-OP 20M] 
Pl. Call           QSO   QSO-p  Mult       Score   Op.
--- -----------  -----   -----  ----   ---------   ------
 1. OH8A           990   2.301    64     147.264   OH8LQ
 2. TF4M           874   1.988    54     107.352
 3. SE2T           664   1.481    48      71.088   SM2YIZ
 4. OH2J           461   1.032    47      48.504   OH2OT
 5. LA9TJA         382     815    42      34.230
 6. SMØQ           318     688    41      28.208   SMØOGQ
 7. SM2CVH         299     645    41      26.445
 8. OH1ZE          284     616    38      23.408
 9. LA1QDA         274     601    35      21.035
10. SM2KAL         290     628    33      20.724

11. OH6RE          273     614    32      19.648
12. SF7WT          197     483    32      15.456   SM7WT
13. SM7DAY         173     402    34      13.668
14. SM5BMB         162     407    28      11.396
15. SI6A           162     374    26       9.724   SM6JSM
16. SM2JEB         104     231    28       6.468
17. SM3AF           71     156    19       2.964
18. OH2BN           41      93    19       1.767
19. OH1BOI          41      96    17       1.632
20. OZ8PG           65     145    11       1.595

21. OZ1CCB          37      90    15       1.350
22. OZ8BN           17      46     9         414
23. OH1MG           10      22    10         220
24. OH1FJ            5      10     5          50   E7DAQ
25. SM6CDG           3       7     3          21

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