Rain, a lot of rain. Non stop all night in fact. It is still raining this morning.
But at least it is warmer. A whopping 3 degrees this morning with a forecast high of 6 degrees. Break out the sunscreen!
NASA satellite image |
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That’s right, there is no let up to the snow & cold icy conditions in the UK. The extent of the recent snowfall can be seen in this NASA image taken by the TERRA satellite on January 7th 2010. This shows the entire British mainland and the Isle of Man under a blanket of snow and ice. Apparently this prolonged cold snap is in part attributed to climate changes in so far as the warmer air from the northern Atlantic ocean (which would normally afford us slightly warmer temperatures at this time of year) is being deflected to the south of the UK by a plunge of cold arctic air from north eastern Europe. A larger version of this image is available on the BBC website for as long as they continue to host it - you can click here to view that image. |
just another sunny day in paradise…probably |
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I can’t be sure but I think it’s probably another sunny day in paradise. It’s sunny here too in central England - the problem is I’m stuck in the office all day…again. This morning is another beautiful morning with clear blue sky and not a cloud in sight, just like yesterday. It’s days like these when you wish it was like this all the time. Sadly, up here in the northern climes we inhabit, that isn’t the case. The best we can hope for every summer is a month or two of hot sunny weather at the very most! |
As I sit at my desk (a temporary location this week due to last weeks flood - see earlier post for details) I see in my minds eye, not the trees and office blocks I see from my window, but a sandy beach and a blue ocean beneath a clear blue sky - my idea of paradise.
Living somewhere with a view like that is a dream of mine and one I intend making a reality with my partner Dulcie. For now though I can only sit in my office looking at the beautiful clear blue sky and working toward making that dream come true.
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I work in an old building with a roof that has certainly seen better days! On at least two prior occasions in the past 4 and a half years a sudden heavy downpour of rain has resulted in the office flooding. Todays flood was by far the worst of those I have experienced while working there. The rain today though was like nothing I’ve ever seen before outside of a tropical storm! I described it as rainfall ‘of biblical proportions’ - the heavens really did open. There was also thunder, lightning and hail for good measure! The aftermath of these floods is a damp, smelly, humid office for a week or two while the dehumidifiers do their thing. For now we are relocated to a dry office where mercifully we still have internet access so all is not lost! |
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the flooded office |
I don’t know how long we will be ‘displaced’ for but I can’t believe the office will be dry within this week. I suspect we could be here for the best part of next week as well. Don’t they say that a change is as good as a rest…?
simple setup with the Yaesu FT-857 |
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Just a quick one following an enjoyable 5 hours out in the sun working mostly 20m SSB portable from Barr Beacon. Myself (G0RIF), Richard (M0SNR) and Luke (M3VVB) took the usual assortment of wires, cables and poles to see what we could throw up & see how it worked. As is often the case the Par End Fedz 20m dipole was pressed into service in a vertical orientation, suspended on a 10m pole - this also supported a quick & dirty 15m dipole hastily constructed from the remnants of the broadside doublet previously tested. |
You may recall a previous post in which I’d had a less than fulfilling time with the doublet so for now it’s back to resonant antennas and coax feedlines. Todays results suggest that the 15m dipole works well, although the 15m band wasn’t particularly busy so only a few stations were worked.
On 20m the vertical performed as expected, which is to say, pretty well. Nothing particularly exotic but worked DX both east (RV9LM) and west (W1OP) with a good selection of European stations, many of which were participating in the Portugal Day contest. A contact of particular interest was with Geoff (G8BPN) working 20m mobile while on a driving holiday in France, logged as F/G8BPN/M.
Just a few words on todays operation from Barr Beacon (IO92BN) when I setup on 20m with the Par End Fedz 20m dipole suspended vertically on a 10m fibreglass pole.
Band conditions weren’t great and there was fast deep fading. Not as bad as 17m at the weekend but still pretty dramatic. Best DX was VE1ZA/m (Tony) followed by OH0/DL9GTI (Ralf). It seems Ralf wasn’t the only German out and about as I also worked Peter in Croatia as 9A/DL4KM/p and Charlie in Italy as I/DL3KHK. In keeping with this ‘operating abroad’ theme I also worked Dave in Menorca as EA6/M0DLL.
All in all it was an enjoyable few hours on 20m when even the weather was pretty good…until the battery was run down and I’d packed everything away, after which it poured it down. I think I timed that perfectly!
You can see my location on Barr Beacon for this operation on the Portable Amateur Radio gallery page.
Clear blue skies and a lovely sunny day in prospect so it’s time to light another fire and have a BBQ. My folks will be joining us so there’ll doubtless be a lot of catching up of family matters and a lot of general chit chat.
Throw in a few cold beers and it all sounds very agreeable! I’m looking forward to a good day in the sun.
The forecast certainly promises clear blue skies for both Saturday and Sunday. I have fingers crossed they’re right. I’m not one to make plans based on the forecasts but having made plans it’s nice to see a favourable outlook. It’s off out to the Barr Beacon for some portable amateur radio activity on Saturday and a BBQ with my folks planned for Sunday, at home in Lichfield.
Sad to say the forecast isn’t too good at the moment for bank holiday Monday when it’ll be the start of the Lichfield Bower (of which more in a later post) so fingers crossed for better than forecast weather on that day!
I think it was John Lennon who said that time you enjoyed wasting wasn’t wasted time. I subscribe to that view entirely but this past weekend was just time wasted and certainly wasn’t very enjoyable.
First of all the weather was terrible…then it was lovely…then it was terrible again…and so on and so on, all weekend. Alternating sunny spells and showers (of varying intensity), all to an almost meticulous hourly cycle. Very difficult to make any plans when trying to get out and operate some portable amateur radio.
Then the technology (or my understanding thereof) let me down. A new doublet antenna I had high hopes for didn’t seem to work very well at all (see ‘An inconclusive test’ below). Time will tell if the new z-match tuner (SEM TranZmatch) will prove to have been a worthwhile purchase.
Then on Sunday, when despite the weather I did get out portable with my 17m vertical dipole (one of the Par End-Fedz), I heard what would have been two all time new ones in the form of Madagascar and St Helena but both stations were buried beneath serious pile-ups with no hope of a QSO in the time I had available. Oh well - another time maybe.
Maybe on reflection I’ll consider it mostly wasted weekend. I did at least get a few contacts in the log and I did learn a little bit about doublet antennas and balanced feedlines. I’m sure I’ll have better luck as the weather improves through the summer and I’m able to spend more time out and about with the portable station and maybe, just maybe, that doublet will come good after all.
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Not quite what I was expecting or hoping for. I’d read a lot about how well a 44ft doublet antenna worked when fed with a balanced line. Unfortunately my little test this afternoon left me a bit disappointed because I certainly didn’t see the kind of performance I expected. I’d taken the time to construct what I thought was a pretty well made antenna. I’d got the right kind of feed line and I’d found myself a good balanced tuner in the form of the SEM TranZmatch (pictured). I was hoping for great things. For one reason or another though the antenna was very difficult to tune on all but 17m. |
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SEM TranZmatch |
I tried all the bands that the antenna is designed for with the exception of 40m. This includes all of 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m and 20m. I wasn’t able to try 40m due to time contraints and some pretty grotty weather (see yesterdays post).
Using a Yaesu FT-857, my transceiver of choice for portable work, I connected the radio to the TranZmatch with a separate SWR meter in line, connected the antenna to the TranZmatch with 20m of 300 ohm ladder line and set about 17m which wasn’t in great shape but did seem to have the usual early afternoon clutch of Asian stations (including VR2XMT, Charlie, coming in loud & clear as usual).
I tuned the TranZmatch for maximum noise on receive and then tweaked it with a bit of RF - quick & simple and a low SWR <1.2:1 across the band. I tried to reply to a few CQ calls but either wasn’t heard or just wasn’t getting out. I didn’t hang around trying to work stations though because this was primarily a test of the antenna/feedline/tuner combination so I moved on to see what 20m was like.
It was at this time that I got the first inkling that all wasn’t quite as I’d hoped. Getting a good match on 20m was really difficult and the lowest SWR possible was no better than 2:1. Now I know this isn’t terrible but I was hoping that the TranZmatch would do better. Maybe I was expecting too much because the same was then true on 15m, 12m and 10m. All of these bands had very sharp tuning and a minimum SWR no lower than 2:1.
I have a few questions in my own mind as to where the problem might lie. Is the feeder a ‘bad’ length - at twenty metres long it’s a full wave on 20m and might just present an extreme mismatch to the tuner. This doesn’t explain why other bands should be just as difficult to tune. The doublet wasn’t level - it was in an inverted-V configuration and the included angle was probably a bit small at around 100 degrees - 120 degrees is recommended. There was a lot of ’spare’ feedline just lying on the ground, loosely coiled - is it better to trim the feedline to prevent this?
For now the jury is out and I have more work to do before deciding one way or the other whether or not I’ll adopt the 44ft doublet as one of my regular portable antennas. And it’s just started raining again!