Tonight I finally joined my local club’s ragchew net. You see, I was living in an apartment in Santa Rosa and having any kind of stealth antenna was a real problem. QRZ logs will show the times I was able to rig up a fishing pole and do some FT-8.
We recently purchased a house. It is about 600 ft above sea level and about 300 feet off the valley floor. But the issue now is that I’m in a canyon off the valley! At least i opted for a house with no HOA so I can put up anything and everything on my 5.6 acres of side-of-the-mountain home.
The funny thing is that I was able to participate on the ragchew net (and hit the club repeater) on a HT using 5 watts and a signal stick bendy antenna. I’m giddy about that!
I’ve also been experimenting with EFHW and EFRW antenna and orientations – since I’m on the West Coast and the rest of the US is to the right side of me as are the mountains my house sits next to. I guess I’ll have to opt for the Pacific Rim contacts! 🙂
I’ve worked FT4 and FT8 as my QRZ log will show, and I’ve had good results with DX from my QTH. Unfortunately, there is a huge solar flare yesterday and today so I can’t experiment too much.
I see a roof tower or something similar in my future!
73,
KV0N
