Last Sunday of the month and time for portable NVIS with my local club, LA1T here in Tønsberg. Nice change of pace to focus on getting as much of the energy as possible straight up, as opposed to parallel to the ground like most of us normally do! I’ve had mixed experiences running NVIS from high ground – firstly you gain very little, as the path loss is practically the same (assuming you’re still doing NVIS). And secondly you’re much more likely to pick up interference coming in at low angles. So I’ve found myself a nice spot just a meter or two above sea level which is just a few minutes drive away. As I routinely see S9+20dB levels of noise on 80m at home, this has become my standard spot for NVIS. When the weather is nice, I’ll usually operate from a comfortable chair and table. With less brilliant weather, like today, I can operate from the car. Running the Yeasu FT-991A at 100W, CG-3000 tuner and a 45m “random wire” antenna between two 10m DX Commander poles. This setup works great on 80m, but less so om 60m. Trying to figure out why I quickly (and rather unscientifically) modelled the antenna in MMANA to see if that would provide any clues. But as can be seen by the attached 3D-plots, the antenna should work well for 60m NVIS. Guess I’ll try a different location next time! Anyway; after about an hour of radio, I’ve got the following participants in my log:
80m, 3.687MHz
- LA1T / LA4VIA Ronny, Gransetra, Andebu
- LA7MHA Tord, Herkelås, Tjøme
- LA1JLA Svein, Ruketuten, Svarstad
- LA3FY Karl Jan, Dagalifjell
- LB8FI Thomas, Vardås
- LA6HKA Espen, Dokka
- LB1PJ Stefan, Bamble
- LA1ILA Jon, Sandefjord
- LB9VE Magnus
- LA1UQ, Blefjell
- LA9JFA/REMOTE, Harald
- LA7TIA Sverre, Finskogen
- LB4PJ/MM, Sandebukte
60m, 5.387MHz
- LA1T / LA4VIA Ronny, Gransetra, Andebu
- LA7MHA Tord, Herkelås, Tjøme
- LA3FY Karl Jan, Dagalifjell
- LB1PJ Stefan, Bamble
- LA1ILA Jon, Sandefjord
- LB9VE Magnus
Also managed to check the NRRL QST-LA net earlier in the day and the LA1T VHF test on 145.300MHz while packing up. All in all a very good day radio-wise!
Should you be interested in the model of my antenna for MMANA, you can download it from here!
