Last Sunday of the month means another LA1T NVIS portable activity on 80m and 60m. Now also including a quick VHF test at the end. That’s quite a bit of equipment for going portable. A total of three 10m DX Commander poles (one “travel” pole, two normal ones) with supports, 45m random wire antenna with 15m counter poise wire, 2m “slim jim”, two 10m lengths of RG58 cable, 12AH LiFePo4 battery, Heil Pro 7 headset, Yaesu FT-991A, AnyTone HT (for APRS) and lastly two feed point tuners – one CG-3000 and one Yaesu FC-40. Been having problems getting the FC-40 to tune on 80m before, and didn’t have much luck today either! Think I will have to send that thing back… But luckily the trusty CG-3000 worked perfect once again.
I spoke to Tord LA7MHA last night, and agreed to run the check-in if he didn’t arrive in time. Which he didn’t, so I started the check-in on 80m. But with the noise level it was hard to copy many of the participants. So when Tord turned up a few minutes past 11, I happily handed the controller hat back to him!
With the controller hat of, I had time to tweak some of the FT-991A’s many settings for dealing with noise, and after a bit of work I was able to copy everyone on 80m:
- LA7MHA/LA1T Tord, Mågerø, Tjøme
- LA6GHA Espen, Dokka
- LA2NCA Knut, Verket, Hurum
- LA3FY Karl-Jan, Duken, Nøtterøy
- LA1JLA Svein, Gautefall
- LA2Z Torgeir, Hortensgruppens club station
- SM/LA6NCA Helge, Varberg, Sweden
- LA8NHA Trond, Verket, Hurum
After two passes on 80m we moved to 60m and much quieter conditions (at least from my QTH at Slottsfjellet in Tønsberg). The following stations checked in on 60m:
- LA7MHA/LA1T Tord
- LA2NCA Knut
- LA1JLA Svein
- LA8NHA Trond
- SM/LA6NCA Helge
- LA3FY Karl-Jan
- LA6HKA Espen
4s and 5s given and all 5s received on 60m; clearly getting out is not a problem with todays setup. I think my noise “problem” may be caused at least in part by the fact that my “random wire” is fed about 1.5m above ground, and as such has a significant vertical element. I should probably look into creating a proper dipole for 80m/60m, fed with ladder line!
We rounded of todays activity with a quick test on VHF, with the following check ins:
- LA7MHA/LA1T Tord
- LA2Z Torgeir
- LA1JLA Svein
- LA2NCA Knut
As is to be expected no one heard everybody, but the five of us were able to relay back and forth to facilitate useful communication; most successful test indeed!
So; summing up this weeks scores, we end up with 9 stations on 80m, 8 stations on 60m and 5 stations on 2m. Quite acceptable!
