Sunday 22 November 2015 – A nice 6m Sporadic E opening at 02:30 UTC on 50.125 and 50.160 MHz USB between VK1 (Canberra) and VK5 (Adelaide). I worked Phil VK5RM in Adelaide approximately 960 km (600 miles) as the crow flies due west of Canberra. My rig is a Yaesu FT-897 operating at 80 watts into a homebrew 6m 1/2 wave vertical antenna with the base of the antenna mounted 1 metre above a 6m x 4m flat galvanized iron garage roof. Signal reports were 5-9 to Phil and 5-5 in reply.
To alert other VK1s to the 6m opening I used my VK1 SOTA SMS list. A local VK1 pile up kept Phil busy for 15 to 20 minutes. 🙂
22 Nov 15 – 6m opening at 02:30 UTC between Canberra and Adelaide on 50.125 MHz
Homebrew 6m 1/2 wave vertical antenna
6m 1/2 wave vertical completed (all joints were later sealed)
Low impedance to High impedance matching coil – details to follow
temporary mounting for adjustment of the tap position on the impedance matching coil
Reference / Links
Sporadic E. (n.d.) In Wikipedia from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation (accessed 22 Nov 15)
Get out of the Radio Shack and Live Life 