The Park
Donna and I made a POTA outing for the first time since late February. Between the weather and our trip to Dayton for Hamvention, our schedule just hasn’t permitted any outings over the last ninety days. I was planning a couple of activations on the road to Dayton, but didn’t pack the right kit.
We went out to Middle Creek State Fishing Lake, US-7392. Even though it’s over thirty minutes from my house, I consider it my home park. Today marked my twenty-seventh activation there. The park is just south of Louisville, Kansas.
The Weather
The high temps in our area today were in the low eighties. There were a few breezes and enough clouds to bring them down a few degrees temporarily. Overall, the weather couldn’t have been better.
The Gear
or the first time in quite a while, I got out the FT-891 today. For power, I used the Bioenno 12v 12ah battery. For the antenna, I started out using a a 20m dipole in an inverted V config with the feedpoint at about thirteen feet. I’ve used this configuration for quite some time, but lately I’ll get about twenty contacts into an activation and the SWR will mysteriously go through the roof. I support the feedpoint with a photographer’s lighting tripod. More on this later. For logging, I use an iPad connected to the web via my iPhone hotspot. My CW key is a BamaKey TPII.
The Activation
SWith Donna’s help, setup was quick and easy. I got to around twenty contacts with no trouble. At that point, the SWR issue mentioned above cropped up.
In the past, I would pack up and leave whenever this happened, but I never really figured out what was happening. Prior to a recent road trip, I put a back-up antenna in the back of the car. It’s a Chameleon 40m EFHW I bought several years back. Besides the antenna, I’ve got an arborist weight and some throw line. It took a few minutes, but I got the EFHW up and running and continued the activation. In the end, I had thirty-six contacts.
The tripod I’m using to support the dipole is all metal. I suspect that there is some interaction between the tripod and center insulator of the dipole causing the SWR. I’m not sure I understand why it takes twenty contacts for the issue to arise. I’ll try and come up with a modification to eliminate this issue in the near future. I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Photos
My most frequent setup.
After the Dipole failed, I lowered it for troubleshooting purposes. I didn’t get a pic of it standing at full height.
These two are of the EFHW after deployment. Everything worked well with this setup.