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10 is wide open to the world.

There's an especially big contest this weekend so I took the opportunity to do a little SWLing.

I have added a good few countries to my SWL list, and worked a couple of new ones.

The bands are still open - I'm listening to RU1A - St Petersburg - at 5/9 as I type this, and there are loads of N, K, W, and a whole bunch of others booming in.

WP3C from Puerto Rico has just come up at a very clear 5/7 with no QSB

10 is open

A61AS, IT9CNF, CT1DVV, a Russian bounding in as if he was next door, and a whole bunch of others.

The UAE station is on 28.458 at the time of posting

3/4 May

Homebrew field day 2025.

This is a stunning event that is very much worth a visit.

Many expats live in estates, and houses there commonly have small gardens and a lot of rules about what you can and can't put up.

That means aerials for HF can be a bit of a problem.

My VHF/UFH vertical is fine. It's up above roof height and does rather nicely, but I'm restricted for HF.

10 (and 11) was looked after with a simple but effective dipole hidden around the back of the house where it can't be seen, but I have problems on longer wavelengths. 40 is a problem as I only have a wire dipole, and that's especially badly mounted so isn't that great.

I tried a surprisingly good home made vertical using a very long telescopic whip, but that can't really be used as a main aerial as it has a variable loading coil and a telescopic whip, then I found this

I had a really good play with it yesterday and the results were pretty good. The thing was low mounted as a temporary installation, but it was comparable with the wire dipole.

Over the past couple of months I have been experimenting with aerials that use cheap fishing rods to support wires, and they have been really quite good.

I made a selection of aerial for 10 - a flower pot, a half wave vertical (QRP only), and a dipole .

These things are cheap, light, and very easy to mount, even when you are restricted for space.

I will now cut a wire the same length as the telescopic on the new aerial, and try it out on the roof.

Because it's so light, I can mount the thing to the water tank without concern. As the rods are thin, it should be almost invisible from the street.

17 June 2025

QRP day on 80, 40,20,15, and 10.

SSB and CW

10 to 20 - 5w max

40 to 80 - 10w max

I have just bought a QRP HF radio from Tokopedia.

It came from China in about 2 weeks and, so far, is looking pretty good.

2 QSOs so far, both on 10, and both reporting good audio.