I'm not particularly well-equipped for 30m. The antenna is a half-sloper, nominally cut for 40m and matched in the shack with a simple ATU, running from about 5m above local ground, sloping to about 1 metre. The 'missing half' is provided by bonding to my modest lattice tower that supports a 3 element 12m LFA beam.
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| The 12m Yagi and tower, prior to the installation of the sloping wire antenna, that forms the 'other half' of the antenna used for the 30m WSPR challenge. |
At 40m the SWR is remarkably good for such an antenna - just 1:1.4. But at 30m, it's about 1:2.5. Losses are pretty low at 10MHz, even with coax feed, so the theory was that the antenna would work reasonably well. Sloping ground in all directions except to the north east, and an elevated aspect near the sea is known to help signals considerably, especially to the Americas.
After 24 hours, where I spent 15% of the time transmitting (probably a mistake in terms of the total stations received), I was really pleasantly surprised to find I'd reached 15th position in terms of unique spots, which numbered 163 over the 24 hours. This was just a couple behind the likes of K9AN and GM4SFW, respected long-term stations with 'good ears'.
Here is the evidence, courtesy of PE1ITR's WSPR Challenge page:
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| Not bad, at 15th position (unique spots.) |
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