'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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