On 13th February I tried to put a signal through Greencube (IO-117) using my 70cm Eggbeater antenna, reception proved easy but the antenna didn’t have enough gain and directivity to put a signal in. Having recently bought a 70cm circularly polarised beam I decided to rig it on a tripod in the garden; azimuth and elevation adjusted by hand. There was about 10 metres of coax up to the shack and my IC-9700 radio was set to 25 Watts out. My failure to get the SatPC32 software setup meant the doppler adjust was also made manually. There followed the maddest radio session I’ve had for some time, tweaking the tuning and dashing outside to move the antenna, all well worth the effort with the following contacts.
15:55 DL6KBG Germany
15:56 EA1IQ Spain
16:04 BA1PK China
16:07 JG2BRI Japan
16:09 JN2QCV Japan
Making the trip up and down the stairs and setting the radio was wearing me down so I decided that was enough but wow it had been worth it. An antenna upgrade is due soon but I’m waiting on warmer drier weather.
