JA4LXY was wondering what my station setup is for topband. Let me
give you some info.
I first got down here in April '95. It's getting close to 2 years I'm
living here without my dear wife and 8 year old son. Brave them.
They've been here for a short time in '96. When they are not around,
I have my 'ham' family keeping me busy.
At the first house I stayed in, I put up 2 Inverted-Ls, 1 for 80 and
1 for topband. I later also erected an R7, which Peter, ON6TT
(ex-VK0IR, what a great job they have done !), left behind for me
when he returned home after a 2 months job in the region.
The Inv-L for 160 was attached to a tower on top of the house, a
tower which was but up by Alex, 9X5EE (PA3DZN), who maybe still is
active now from Angola as D25L. Top hight of the Inv-L was about 18m,
and it had 6 radials between 15 and 30m long.
I borrowed a TS-50 from ex-9X5LJ, got licensed as 9X/ON4WW at that
time, and was ready for take-off.
My first sked with ON4UN on topband I will never forget. For some
reason, this TS-50 only gave an output of 30 Watts on topband. After
1 call, John came back to me ! I couldn't believe my eyes and ears.
My antenna was working !
Then I received an FT-900 radio, together with the R7, so I got 100
Watts on topband.
End of June '95, I returned for a break back home, and returned the
FT-900 and R7 to Peter.
When I returned in August '95, I had to move houses. Now I got in the
middle of town, but luckily had a garden with some trees (no way I
would have moved to a house without garden and trees...).
Yaesu Europe sponsored a FT-900, Telex Hy-Gain a DX-77 vertical. The
2 Inv-Ls moved along and found there way into the trees. This setup
was not as good as in the previous QTH, the trees covering the
topband Inv-L completely to the north. I could feel it was not going
as smooth as before. The radial system was even more limited as
before.
At the end of '95, I moved to another house (yep, some moving around
goes on here...), be it only next to the house I was living in. The
80m Inv-L and DX-77 could stay in place, the 160m one had to be moved
to the next garden, some 6 trees away. A 'strong arm' from an
ex-sailor/radio operator (whose name was 'Armstrong', believe it or
not) did the job with the fishing line again, up went the Inv-L.
Height now is about 16m. Radial system is far from optimal, but got
some 5 radials between 15 and 25m now. As the north direction was
still covered by the trees and my outgoing signal not strong enough,
I brought along my family to help me carry my 'very heavy
handluggage' end of January '96. That was of course not the only
reason why they came along...Thanks to them my signal improved "a
bit" on topband. As for reception, I had always listened on the
Inv-L, for EU this was ok. But NA and JA (where most stations were to
be worked, only few SA and OC) was vy difficult. So I brought along
some kilometers of copper wire, ON4UN gave me a special treat and
made me 2 super quality transformers for the beverage antennas I
wanted to put up.
This was going to be fun : the beverages had to cross the road...
And fun it was. When putting up the JA beverage, the wire got caught
to the mirror of a bypassing car...at speed of 40 Km/h...the big coil
kept unwinding, I thought this guy would take my beverage all over
Kigali...luckily it broke when he got some 100 meters further down
the road. Think he didn't notice at all...
The second attempt was successful. Still got plenty of wire on the
coil, that'll be for another place.
I listened during daytime on the higher bands to the beverages to
some broadcast stations, waw, I got some directivity. But, oh oh, at
night the dissapointment was great. The beverages were 2 S-points
down from the Inv-L, but the noise level was the same ! What had gone
wrong ? Back to the master, John told me that they were too close to
the Inv-L (both feedpoints only 3m away from Inv-L feedpoint). Also I
have no other possibility but keeping them up abt 4m above ground. So
back to the drawing board. I would need 2 lenghts of 40m RG58 coaxial
cable. I had none left, nor had the Organisation I work for. Other
Agencies also nothing. But then I met Andy, LA2HFA, ex-HF0POL, JW0P.
Great, he provided me 100m RG58 ! As of today I am still waiting for
some guys to put up a large pole so I can safely cross the feedlines
across the street. The 'beverages' are actually working as 'long
wire' antennas, and on the high bands I get more quiet reception than
on the vertical (which is not ideally placed as well).
Hopefully I can get these beverages working before topband season is
over.
Over the past, almost 2 years, I made over 34.000 QSOs as 9X/ON4WW,
9X1A (WPX cw '95) and 9X4WW. Definetely will not get the VK0IR total
of 80.673 !
Hope you appreciated 'Inside' from Kigali (not to be seen on CNN).
73 - Mark - 9X4WW
With a special 'thank you' for my dear wife and son for supporting
me. While I provide humanitarian help down here, they have to cope
alone with daily problems back home. And as you know, when the man
gets out the house, problems start coming. I can confirm this...
Pse feel free to use this little story in Ham Magazines if you think
it's worth publishing.
For those still needing 9X on topband, keep on trying. For North and
South America I will be qrv at 02z my Saturday, Sunday and Monday
morning. JA has the usual 2130-2215z daily schedule.
As for other band operations, due to a change in local radio
regulations, I am for the moment restricted to 20 and 160m. I am not
getting any response from ITU, regarding Amateur Radio Regulations,
to tackle this problem.
Am sure when Ghis, ON5NT, gets back home from Heard, Kerguelen and
Reunion, he will be able to get things going.
For the moment I have to pay $330 per FIXED freq...so I decided $660
is enough for radio fun for the moment. What say eh ? This info is
not for publication, let me try to get things back to normal for all
hams here. If I need more help, I will ask.
Two weekends ago I showed the 3Y0PI video to a group of 8 amateurs,
some more hot stuff to be shown in the next weekends to come...OQ7AR
(at ON6TT), OT3T (at ON4UN), PJ9W, AH1A,...and maybe later this year
VK0IR ? Sure u all want to come down here to join the fun, hi...
Cul - 73 - Mark.
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