Great writeup and pictures/video Rob. Your signal the second morning was very strong here.
Tree N6TR / K7RAT On Mon, Jan 1, 2024 at 4:37 PM Rob Van Geen <[email protected]> wrote: > Dave and I (Rob, NH6V) have been enjoying experimenting with antenna setups > on the east coast of the "Big Island" of Hawai'i in several of the 160 > contests since December 2022. > > We run 1500W to a full-size 1/4λ wire sloping ~50° up to the top of a 150' > Cook pine tree across the road from the beach. It runs off of two 130' > elevated radials that run parallel to the coastline and perpendicular to > the direction of North America and Europe.. 35°. The feedpoint is back > about 25' from the ocean and it even gets occasionally hit by the large > crashing surf (!). A pretty ideal antenna, as it turns out. > > For RX this year, it was necessary to deploy a single direction K9AY loop > in order to null out a new, S-3 (at 3 kHz bw) power line noise > emanating from the neighborhood about 1km to the northwest. We didn't > experience this noise for the ARRL 160. Unfortunately, the noise is also > coming from the same direction as Japan. So this ended up being our sole > receive antenna, and we must say that it was most beneficial and kudos go > out to K9AY for this especially innovative antenna design. Thank you, Gary! > > Driving 4' ground rods into the lava rocks wasn't too easy. There was also > a good amount of seawater wetted sand to help lower the resistance - we're > guessing no better than about 100Ω. > > Thanks for the QSOs! Your participation is greatly appreciated by all. We > hope to continue operating from this portable location in all future 160 > contests. > > Look for our report with additional details on www.3830scores.com - to be > updated within the next couple of days. > > Album with photos and some video: > https://photos.app.goo.gl/5LC1srprU1F9SsTW9 > > Rob - NH6V > _________________ > Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband > Reflector > _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
