LF: 630m WSPR this evening

[Roger Lapthorn <rogerlapthorn@gmail.com>]

'Recently I moved 350m east (!) to a new QTH and I've been experimenting with 630m WSPR.

My initial tests were with the transverter on my website feeding a pair of earth-electrodes but with a shorter baseline than was possible at the old QTH (about 12m separation). Although I managed to get reports from G, ON and PA, it was clear that results were nowhere near as good as I obtained at the old QTH. I am speculating that this is due to the effective spacing between earth rods being much shorter and due to buried wires and pipes criss-crossing the lawn. On RX it is working very well though and I have copied most of the nearer Europeans on 630m WSPR.

This afternoon I converted the earth-electrode antenna to an "in the air" loop by disconnecting the earth rods and joining the wire ends with a wire running along the top of the lawn (in the grass). The loop DC resistance is 0.9 ohms and it tunes sharply with about 1.7nF. Matching is via a 3C90 step-down toroid.

Initial encouraging reports include first spots from M0PPP, who had failed to copy me before from this QTH, as well as PA3ABK/2 and G8HUH.

If anyone else can look for me this evening I'd appreciate it. The loop is not very high and can be further improved if results this evening are encouraging.

73s
Roger G3XBM

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