My solution is pretty simple. All I have to do is move my front yard
into my back yard. When I bought this place I forgot to look UP. So
my few trees are all in front of the house, meaning I have to run my
feed line to my antennas, then the antennas radiate directly into my
feed lines! I've already put up a 2 el 40m quad which turned out to
be an excellent dummy load, most likely because I was radiating
partially into the feedline!
Fortunately I do have ONE spot where I can move my 80m dipole so it's
pointed into W8/W9 land and on 80 and 40m puts out a lobe that pretty
much covers the US. That should wok OK for the SS.
For the upcoming DX test, I'm going to again try a 2 el 40m quad,
this time really pointed at 46 degrees. If I'm lucky I can also get
up a 3 el 20m quad into Eu. I should receive a waterproof box, this
week, to put near all the antennas, will use old EF Johnson Match Box
relays for switching antennas. Ambitious plans this close to contest time!
Tom - W4BQF
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