Out with the hexbeam, having fun

Fixed the hexbeam and worked some "new ones"

Just under 2 weeks ago I damaged my hexbeam: I let it drop off the mast. It fell in such a way that one of the spreaders was broken. Luckily Christian (DL1ELU) was able to ship spare parts quickly - I received them just before Christmas. Yesterday I spend a couple of hours fixing the hexbeam. I also redid all the wiring taking good care to not skew the spreaders. This time I fixed the wire clamps by attaching tape to the spreader just next to the clamp (on one side) to keep the wire clamps from moving inward.

This morning I took all the stuff out to my favourite /P spot and found that all the wires 
were still nicely in place - the tape did the job. No skewed spreaders this time.

Folding Hexbeam

There was quite some wind and I had to cope with a damaged screw in one of my tube clamps (I built my own alu mast using strong tube clamps to secure the different sections). This all meant the mast was no higher than about 9 meter (30ft). I did however work one new DXCC (YI) and several "new band" DXCCs (VU, 9M2, HZ, LU). I also added a new VK area to my log (VK3) and worked Paul VK5PAS again. Paul came by during one of my PAFF activations earlier this month. Maximum distance was towards LU, as I worked him long path.

I tried to work VP8LP on 15m and 17m but it was a zoo with loads of people calling but not listening. So I gave up (as did VP8LP who turned his beam to VK/ZL).

Good fun on the last day of the year.

Happy 2013!