Author: G3VRE Admin

The storm passed through Chippenham an hour before our Club meeting and just in time for us to erect the Buddipole for a super evening on 40m.

Brian G6HUI was intending to try a 6m hookup with Jon DL/G0IUE in the Mosel valley but conditions on 50mhz just weren’t condusive this evening. Brian therefore assisted Jacek M0PLS with the installation of the Buddipole and before you knew it we were set and ready for an evening on 40m.

The Buddipole ready for unpacking

The Discovery 599 and matching amp ready to go. Now just needs the antenna.

Up it goes the Buddipole ready for action.

Up and up it goes…. ready for 40m Ops.

So shortly after 7.45pm local we got going and worked one station after another. The little notepad log soon ran out of space…

The little notepad log early on in proceedings.

DL/G0IUE gave us a call. Club member Jon G0IUE was over in the Mosel valley in Grid Square JN39NX and heard the pile up and gave us a shout. Jon was 5-8 to 9 back in Chippenham and he gave us a similar report.

Jon DL/G0IUE in Enkirch Germany working GX3VRE

We had some great fun this evening and putting in the effort to get the antenna up in the air really paid off. We thank everyone who helped on the night and those who called in for making it such a fun event.

Time to take it down again..

Till next week, best 73 and good DX from the Chippenham Radio Club website team.

Big thanks to Club Member Alan G6YCG for signposting us to the latest news from Matt and Mark from GB7BS and the South West Cluster HQ.

A useful guide for programming your radios for the existing, newly on air and upcoming (GB7WW) repeaters on the South West Cluster.

It was a rather damp old night outside so we opted to stay in the dry and assemble a Buddipole antenna on a tripod. Jacek M0PLS had just received a shipment of new high power coils and an extension kit from the USA and was keen to test it out. Ideally we would have done this outside but the inclement weather put pay to that.

Here are some pictures from our indoor tests:

Jacek M0PLS assembling the elements

Time to check the SWR with the NANO VNA

All done and working fine.

Jacek tested the antenna on both 40m and 20m and a good SWR was achieved on both bands. He hopes to test this antenna again at the club when the weather is better and it can be set up in the car park.

Thanks for brining it along Jacek.