An evening of 12m portable

Conditions on the upper HF bands have been very good recently.  So good, in fact, that I decided to throw together a 12m 1/4 vertical for coastal deployment.

I find the CSG Network site gives perfect results for wire lengths every time, but the matching is also assisted by downward-sloping radials from the elevated feedpoint.  SWR in the deployed state is 1:1.

Radio with the family doesn't really work out, but when all you want to do is sit and drift off into the horizon at the coast, then it's fine.  When I did take everything out, I forgot the coax in the process of transferring items from my RX bag to my transceiver box!

Take 2!

Last evening 12m was quite strong again, and the weather, though cloudy, very warm.  I took an hour to deploy everything on the north coast, only a couple of minutes by car from home.

24MHz activity at IO73tk last evening, looking NNE.

With a new Raspberry Pi 4B installed recently, I found I hadn't set up all the variables in the software, so that took up a couple of minutes.  But I soon settled down to some FT8, using 10-15W from the TS480SAT, powered by a small disabled person's scooter 12V gel battery that is good for maybe a couple of hours' work at typical FT8 transmission rates.

The 'go box', with in-built Raspberry Pi 4B.

Signals across the sea were, as expected, very strong and of the same kind of level I would expect using the 3-ele LFA from home (perhaps better, as I have high ground to the NE).  The open vista to Sweden and Finland was particularly good for the signals, and Russia out to 4000km was also very good, with SNRs in solid, positive territory.  I managed 11 QSOs altogether, just very casually operating.

And, so as not to break the tradition, a couple walking their dogs asked if I had caught anything.  Arrrgghh!  When they understood it was radio, they were concerned (jokingly) that "I might be talking to the Russians".  Very funny.  I replied that I am of Russian descent, and that if the couple wasn't careful, a Russian submarine would surface behind me.  They left, feeling a little bit embarrassed at having shown their all-too-typical British prejudice...