50 MHz Balcony

I am up in northern Sweden as SM0FOB/2 and not so far from the Arctic Circle. The Sun is down only for 1 1/2 hours and the conditions on the HF bands are noneexistant. But on 50 MHz there are openings almost every day. I have a very primitive set-up for 50 MHz on a balcony. An old 144 MHz 5/8 lambda whip antenna with magnetic mount is hanging losely upside down on a gutter. The antenna acts as an 1/4 lambda on 50 MHz and the gutter as the ground plane. The rig is a Yaesu FT-857D transceiver. I have liimited the output power to 40 watts because it may be some hazardous risk sitting so close to the antenna :-) The power supply is a car battery. With this set-up I worked JW7QIA on Svalbard on June 27.



Comments

goody said…
Nice QTH! I would love to live that far up north.

73
Goody
K3NG
Yes Goody it is nice here even in winter time. But the mosquitos are now somewhat irritating. The nature is lovely and we have brown bears nearby. I have never seen one though, only tracks.

73 Kjell, SM0FOB