Home made Windom Antenna

I needed an HF antenna!

Well at least thats what I have been telling myself since I got the new UHF/VHF antenna setup.  So this weekend I decided I needed to get on the air at home with an HF base antenna.

So I had a chat with one of the members at the local Ham Radio club a nice chap called Phil G4UDU and he sold me some parts which consist of a 4:1 balun, some copper wire, insulators and coax.  It took me an hour to make a 40 meter Windom antenna and set it up from the top of the house to a 18' painters pole in the garden.

The SWR on the antenna without tuning is;

7.0mhz 2
7.1mhz 1:1

14.010mhz 4
14.350mhz 3.5

28mhz > 3
29.695mhz  1.1


Not perfect but looks quite good at 7.1mhz and 29mhz, so without pulling it down again and making it a little longer.  I hooked it upto my LDG-Z817 and decided today to spend a little time trying to get further than Yorkshire.

My very 1st look at 28mhz gave me two QSL's

28.517 LZ3FN/M Chirs in Bulgaria driving to Vaga, 5/9 signal report even though I'm running 5w QRP.

28.537 9H4CM Charlie in Gozo Malta, again on 5w QRP and 5/9 signal report.

Lastly I had a go on 40 meters which was very very busy and got a QSL from ON4PTC/P Archi 7.087mhz 5/9 from ZUID WEST VLAAMSE RADIO AMATEUR CLUB in Passiondale , this site was setup for Armistice day.

Wow amazing what a piece of wire can do.


Addendum, also had a QSL with 

SQ9SXS 7.175mhz 5w, station in Poland 5/5 signal report.

The joys of 2 meter calling

Making contact on 2 meters

As a newbie to this hobby I'm learning quickly, all of the people I have talked to have been very helpful and encouraging.  I did however have a problem recently, I can get contacts on 20/40 meters but nothing on 2 meters or 70 cm on the Yeasu 817ND.  So I decided to erect a new antenna a Diamond X50, this is on a pole about 6 foot above my house.  So since Saturday I have been trying it and there are my results.

I got the aerial erected about a week ago but I did not get the chance to sit down and call CQ at all, I was however listening to the aeroplanes, airports in the area and also some other Ham users.  But at the weekend I did have some time to use it.  These were the results.

Simplex calling on 2 meters

I had a successful session with the chaps at the Worthing and District Radio Ham club on the 15th September, running 5 watts through a Diamond X50 antenna, I contacted G0SIU – Brian
& G8BZL – Graham well and could hear 2E0FVL – Pete & 2E0RKO – Norman.  All of these guys are the other side of the South Downs all on 145.450mhz about 12 miles - 20 miles away.

The Diamond X50 is proving to be a very good aerial indeed and it has frequency bands 2m/70cm with Gain 4/7.2dB, I can hear the air bands very well and also I'm starting to get contacts now.

USB calling on 2 meters

I did try to get some SSB contact on the 14th however having a collinear due the the polarization I was not surprised at not getting anything.

Calling a repeater

I did however manage to get the Brighton 2 meter repeater OK at 2 watts on 145.600mhz.  I chatted to M0CFI Andy for a while.

This is all going well now I have started to get my equipment sorted out and I'm understanding more.

I made the Yeasu FT 817ND work at 5 watts

Error in the Yeasu manual

After my previous outing with the 817, I decided to try to find out why I was only operating at 2 watts.  To my suprise, or not it turns out if you are running on an external power supply or car battery then the power indicator goes out to indicate its on 5 watts, when on internal power it flashes.  Problem solved.

So today I had a play and managed to talk to;

M6WYD John 7.129mhz station in West Yorkshire at 5 watts QRP distance 200 miles

G4BIZ 7.136mhz station in the New Forrest at 2 watts QRP, the QRM was terrible and we had to cut the chat short distance 60 miles

QRP Setup Buddipole and Yeasu FT-817ND

A quick look at my QRP setup.

Consists of a Yeasu FT-817ND with additional filters, a LDG Z817 auto tuner for when I'm lazy not tuning the SWR on the buddipole and a AV-20 SWR meter.

My QRP setup....

My QRP antenna is a Buddipole on a 5 meter painters stick from Amazon.  I manually tune the SWR before use to make the most of the limited power.  I can normally get an SWR of approx 1:1.2.  However this moves up quickly when off a set frequency and sometimes I plug in the ATU to resolve any SWR issues.  This of course make the setup less efficient.

Buddipole, chairs not included

Te whole QRP setup fits in a small bag with the antenna and pole easily fitting in my Audi, or even our Smart car.

This is a small setup ;-)

1st ever QRP on 40 Meters

List of my 1st QRP contacts on 40 meters using a Yeasu 817ND and Buddipole

GB100MWT pm 7,122mhz 2w QRP station was in Chelsford Essex approx 50 miles

GB6YD Barry, 7,129mhz 2w QRP station in Yorkshire distance approx 200 miles


GB4SLB Pete, 7,163mhx 2w QRP station in Selsey West Sussex probably 30 miles