Testing our NVIS Antenna
FHARC members met Saturday, Apr. 26, at Bern’s barn where we tested and worked on NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) antennas. The rain came and left and came again but we persevered. A HUGE storm was to the West and South of us as we started.
Wayne and Vic set up Wayne’s homemade 40m NVIS antenna. Wayne attached the military fiber glass antenna masts to a support that slides into the receiver hitch on the truck and made an inverted V with the NVIS antenna elements.
At 11:00 we made a 40 meter contact with Mark, K5CCC in McKinney, Texas, about 308 miles from Bern’s barn. Mark is a member of the Northern Texas NVIS group and volunteered to help us test the NVIS antennas. He is Net Control on Tuesday nights at 8:30PM CT over VarAC for the NT-NVIS group. Barb set up her Yaesu FT-857 radio and LDG AT100 Tuner at 100 watts.
John, KØJDL fielded the QSO contact over SSB and said our connection had a lot of static and asked if we could raise the antenna higher. Vic and Wayne slipped in another five foot long pole and raised it from 16 feet to 21 feet. Mark said the signal was a lot stronger and clearer.
We then decided to connect digitally using Barb’s HP Windows 10 laptop interfaced to the radio using Digi-rig. We loaded up the VarAC software and broadcast to Mark that we were connected and online. Mark connected and we had a wonderful QSO.
Shin-Ae made us breakfast burritos and tea and coffee. What’s a meeting at the barn without food? Thank you Shin-Ae for taking care of us while we worked.
Wayne instructed Shin-Ae, Consuella, Ted and Vic how to make “paracord” Guy Collar that is used to connect the antenna support guy line to the antenna pole which supports our NVIS antennas.
Wayne and Vic worked on a center feed connector that Wayne made for him. Vic will use the center feed connector for tying the NVIS antenna dipole wires when erected on the antenna mast.
Bern had also set up his NVIS antenna for testing. Bern did have a 1:2 SWR so we were ready to test. We attempted to test but the propagation had died!
Considering we managed to make a QSO both SSB and Digitally through a thunderstorm I’d say we performed an Emergency Communications test and SUCCEEDED!
Barb demoed a new site that allows you to place your QSOs on a map.
Here is the site:
https://www.qsomap.com/index.php
Barb had put her QSOs from the first of the year into the site and showed some of the maps that can be generated. The Polylines are really cool! She said she will load up the clubs QSOs from the 2024 KS QSO Party and present at the May Zoom Meeting on May 12th.
