Dog Antenna

Arrived in "Northland" (Norrland) in Sweden a couple of days ago. A 13 hours night train trip from Stockholm to Boden. Brought with me my Yaesu FT-817 QRP transceiver, but forgot the antenna tuner and some other necessary radio stuff. From the house balcony here in Boden a steel wire is running. A wire with a dog lead. Hmm ... this could maybe be of use as an antenna. Tried to load it and the FT-817 SWR meter showed very high SWR, almost infinity I would guess. Called my friend Einar, SM5CBC. He has good ears and is a CW man. With his new Yaesu FT-897 transceiver set to 5 W output he called me on the QRP frequency 3.560 MHz. It was solid copy here and after some mixing with the station earth he could copy me and on 7.030 MHz as well. After that I have had some SSB and CW QSO´s on the 80 and 20 m bands. I am not sure of that I can recommend a dog antenna :-)




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