Both Glen (G0SBN) & Bob (M0KLO) spent Saturday afternoon doing a dry run of putting up the 8m mast with the newly acquired Hexbeam from Ant (MW0JZE). It was more than a bit windy so it was a quick up and down in the paddock to check on guy lengths. The second Hex is going up on a 12m Clark mast so hopefully that will be a bit more straight forward.
We used the Hex in 2012 for GB5DX and it was a good performer which encouraged Glen to make the plunge. The latest Hex from Ant is a lot lighter and has evolved a great deal and we are looking forward to giving it a good run out.
This week will see the testing of the 40m, 80m verticals and also the beverage RX antenna. We hope to be QRV on 160m which will most likely be an inverted ‘L’. The following week is a dry run of the shack and networking on Wintest which should leave us enough time to minimise ‘murphy!’
The three stations are going to be Kenwood 590s with bandpass filters fitted and running 400w from two of them and barefoot on the third. There will also be a Kenwood TS480SAT which will be configured for data mode operations.
Lots of lessons are being learnt during preparation and we can see why many operations opt for a waterside location and verticals. Its no easy feat wheeling around a Clark mast but hopefully it will be worth the effort!
We’ve recruited two extra recruits – Max and Jed who are Bob’s Border Collies. They came with us on GB5DX in 2012 and people seemed more interested in knowing what they were doing than about the station so they’re back on the team.
Cheers, Bob, M0KLO
GS0NWM will be the call sign of the Tynemouth Amateur Radio Club’s IOTA activation of Isle of Arran, EU-123, from March 26th – April 2nd 2014.
The team will enter the CQ WPX Contest (29th & 30th March) as GM5NMulti Op.
