A new year with new challenges just started. This weekend we got snow and temperatures below the freezing point for the first time this winter. On Saturday I spent some time making sure antennas where in shape for the colder season. I checked and adjusted tension of the 160 meter vertical guys and everything else
The top loaded 160 meter Top Band vertical TX antenna has been deployed for the winter DX and contest season. This year the antenna is based on an 18 meter aluminum vertical with three top loading wires. The ground system consists of two elevated radials bent to follow the shore line. Both radials are raised
A new 15 meter mono band yagi has been installed at SE0X, it replaces the 10 meter 4 element yagi on top of the tower. The new antenna is an InnovAntennas 5 element OP-DES yagi on a 6.2 meter boom. The reason for sacrificing the 10 meter mono band yagi is mainly the slow progress
For WPX CW I had planned to install a 15 meter mono beam or use the 3 band Spiderbeam as my SO2R antenna for high bands, but a tight schedule before and after the contest made me trash those plans. Instead I tried Vertical Dipole Arrray (VDA) of the type we plan to use for
A two element 40 meter vertical array has been installed at SEØX this weekend. The array is built using fibre glass poles and the two verticals are facing North America with the intention to improve DX scores in contests. The Comtek PVS 40 phasing system is used which allows for endfire patterns in NW or SE
The topband vertical at SEØX, an inverted L, broke in the winter storms rendering the antenna useless. Because of the remote location and the heavy snow just before the CQ WW 160 weekend I was not sure if I was able to repair or replace the antenna in time for the contest. The good news
The 10 meter yagi at SEØX is broken… again! The tip of the front director have been broken “clean off” in a way that reminds me of a classic movie quote by Clint Eastwood: ‘this is a 44 Magnum the most powerful handgun in the world, it will blow your head clean off and you
A little late into the Topband season the new inverted L has been installed at SEØX, just in time for the CQWW SSB contest. The vertical part of the inverted L stands 19 meter tall. The bottom 13 meters are made of 50, 45 and 40 mm aluminium pipe and the top part is four
For the second time the 3-element SteppIR antenna at SEØX failed, and this time with terrible timing a few days before the SAC SSB Contest. First I expected the failure to be similar to when then antenna copper tape jammed inside the EUH the past winter. Friday night, less than 20 hours before the start of the contest, we took the tower down and opened up the dipole EHU to find the drive shaft broken.
Finally the SEØX 3 element SteppIR is back in service after repair following the failure this winter. This picture was taken after the first test QSO receiving excellent reports from Kevin, NL7Z. In February SEØX lost it’s 3-element SteppIR antenna. During rapid temperature change from above to below zero the antenna tape froze inside the fibreglass pole tube and got