M5MAT

70cm UKAC September 2020

Tue, 08 Sep 2020
19
Matt, M5MAT

Antenna problems with the 23-ele DK7ZB again, although not entirely surprising because I still haven't managed to wrestle it into conformance yet. Still, some reasonable DX worked.

This session didn't start too well - my primary site was unavailable, I'd forgotten the laptop PSU (and didn't have any pens/pencils so couldn't even log on paper), the mast support on the roof of the car decided to cease to be a support and the FT857d screen is now so badly zebra-striped that it is unusable. My dad generously offered to run the PSU out to me, the CAT connection to the rig actually worked for once (so I could cope without the screen) and everything else was sorted out on...

First time running the 23-element 70cm DK7ZB yagi at the full 10m mast height (although the pics below only show it at about 6m) - and it was rock solid, which was reassuring. Lightning stopped play early (at about 9:30BST) but to be honest things weren't going too well anyway. There was some DX (2 x GD and one in JO03) but I seemed to work more off the back of the beam than the front. The rig was also showing occasional SWR errors too, so I think the antenna needs a look...

2m UKAC August 2020

Tue, 04 Aug 2020
19
Matt, M5MAT

2m 23-element DK7ZB @10m

2m FMAC July 2020

Tue, 07 Jul 2020
19
Matt, M5MAT

Got set up in time to take part in FMAC this month and it was quite a busy session!

2m UKAC July 2020

Tue, 07 Jul 2020
19
Matt, M5MAT

First time back out portable since the lockdown. Excellent evening activity-wise (weather not so much...).

70cm UKAC March 2020

Tue, 10 Mar 2020
19
Matt, M5MAT

Problems:

The antenna was swinging on the mast, so anything up to about 30° out.
About 10 minutes after the start, the voltage at the rig started dropping to about 10V after a couple of seconds of transmit. This causes the rig to either FM or to just cut out completely. The voltmeter on by ignition-sense disconnect box wasn't showing a problem. I didn't manage to properly diagnose the problem but feeding the system from the cigar lighter socket seemed to fix the...
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