First, I tried two repeaters on nearby Mt. Vaca; I got very good signal reports on both, which was to be expected. Next I tried the WD6EJF repeater, located 68.78 miles away to the south-southeast on Mt. Oso, and got a favorable report. I also logged one simplex contact with Jim, KI6AZH, in Auburn--almost 56 miles (90 km) away to the northeast. Considering the fact that the antenna was sitting on the ground, and there are several two-story structures close by to the north and south, I think the initial results were pretty good. With higher elevation--and fewer vertical obstructions--I feel confident that I will log contacts at some impressive distances.
The author of the article from which I built this antenna states that best results are achieved by fully extending all whips and tilting the vertical whip slightly away from the desired direction of transmission. As seen below, this is easily achieved.
Hi Steve, congratulations and well done on your first homebrew antenna. It's clear you take great pride in your mechanical work. The ground plane antenna will offer omidirectional performance which for SOTA is important as you don't know which direction the next chaser will call from. Something you may like to consider for your next antenna project is a portable 2m 3el yagi which will offer gain, but also allow you to experiment with changes in polarisation from vertical to horizontal. Good luck with your next SOTA activation.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Andrew (VK1AD)
Hi Andrew,
DeleteThanks for the kind words. I'll definitely take your suggestion into consideration. I've been watching your activation reports and often see your alerts in SOTAwatch; it's a shame we're too far apart to do an S-2-S.
73