It was a beautiful day yesterday, here in southeastern Pennsylvania. I hadn’t done any portable operating lately, so this was a perfect day to get out there to test a new antenna I built.
I headed back out to the property my daughter and son-in-law own. They are in the process of restoring an old farmhouse on a large piece of land. Like my last outing there, I had the place to myself.
I mentioned in a previous post that I had built a half-square antenna out of speaker wire. So, I set it up in what had been a cornfield and gave it a go.
The bands were wall-to-wall with participants in the CQ WW PX Contest. While I was playing around with the antenna, I worked several contest stations on 40M, 20M, and 15M. Running five watts, I was able to work most of them on the first call. Contesters, of course, have exceptional ears.
All in all, I was pleased with the half-square antenna. I used a slightly different approach to this antenna, which gave me some multi-band capabilities. The KX3 was able to load it up from 80M through 6M. A detailed post on this speaker wire antenna project is in the works.
After two months away from it, it sure felt great to be back out in the field again playing with the radio.
72, Craig WB3GCK
WB3GCK QRP Amateur Radio 