I've decided that the best accessory you can have in a ham shack is a fifteen year old grandson. Not only are they smart, they're also strong and I think sometimes they just want to show Opa what they can do.
I was trying to work some PSK31 on 30 meters using my super-duper G5RV, but the SWR was too high and the loading was terrible. The antenna works very well on all the other bands, but 30 meters seems to be its nemesis. I was sitting around the shack when my eyes fell upon a small cardboard box in the back of the closet that contained a 20 meter dipole that I had planned to string up in the attic of the home I had in Georgia in an HOA antenna restricted environment. I knew also that I had some 14 gauge Copperweld around somewhere, so the idea began to form.
I pulled out the old dipole tacked on enough Copperweld to produce an antenna cut exactly for 10.140 mHz. The next day, my grandson, Chris, and I got out the old antenna crossbow that I used for years to string antenna wire in the trees when camping and picnicking and along with a hundred feet of Nylon rope and the muscle power of a teenager brought it up to its full height - flat top at 40 feet. This is the best form of recycling - reusing an old antenna for a new purpose!
We came back into the shack and hooked it up to the TS-440 through the Daiwa CN-801HP meter and called CQ on 30 meters. The meter showed a perfectly flat output on 10.140 mHz! I've never cut a dipole before that didn't need to be re-tuned at least a little, but this one was the Cat's Meow. Of course, no one answered... it was too early and the band was either closed or there was simply no other old retired guys with nothing else to do but listen to dead air available.
Later in the evening the band started to show some activity and I met one of the nicest people I've met on the air, AK8D Wayne McKenzie. He has a lot more experience on these new digital modes than I do and was willing and able to spend some time demonstrating some of the other modes available for amateur use. We tried HellSchrieber which I thought was a bit like facsimile transmission and MFSK16 which he described as the mode used by NASA to send photos back from the Mars expedition. He sent me a couple of pictures. In one I could make out what had to be a creature from Mars, and the other was just grain because the band was dropping out from under us.
So far on this new dipole I've worked France, Northern Ireland and a few stations in the US. I'm sure there will be many more to come.
