Running two antennas has its advantages

Bands are interesting things.. 

A recurring net I could listen to perfectly with members from VK3, VK7 and VK1 yesterday on the 80/40m trapped dipole, today I couldn't really hear beyond the VK3 (who is literally around the corner). 

I've got a pair of cheap coax switches running - to understand the logic, I need the Icom to switch between antennas. The Xiegu G90 just needs the vertical. 

It's ugly but it works. The top switch is the "Icom" switch, that goes either to the horizontal dipole, or to the other switch. The second switch is the "Vertical" switch. It's either on the G90, or passing through to the other switch. Not the greatest brand of switch I know, but my budget isn't that healthy!

 

I changed over to the vertical, and was hearing all of the members of the net loud and clear - a little noisy, but still a 59. 

A while later, another local - as in, in Ballarat, called the group via mobile. Could not hear him at all on the dipole. The vertical, no problem. 

Quite interesting how what worked yesterday didn't really work today. But then, 40m yesterday was really quite busy during the day. Today, this is the first net I've heard, and I've checked with both antenna. 

As much as I try to keep the Xiegu G90 for digital, it does come in handy to quickly check a frequency with the vertical, given a seemly dead frequency with a horizontal antenna can be booming with the vertical. 

Amusingly, when I throw the Icom over to the vertical that leaves the G90 with nothing more than a few feet of RG-58 going up to a switch at about 1.8m. The earlier (and frequently referred to neighbour) was literally booming into the G90 with nothing more than a few feet of coax.. mostly coax running behind a LCD panel over the top of a PC and up to a switch. 

Another observation during this exercise was the difference in clarity between the G90 and the Icom when both running the vertical. The Icom was a fairly clear winner with both the speaker and the headphones. The DSP in the Icom made a huge difference.

The only dislike is that the Icom only has a mono output, unlike the Xiegu which is stereo. Depending on my tinnitus, sinuses and general state of my hearing, sometimes having the audio in both ears helps.

In other news, the flag poles are still up. That's a good sign. Just disappointing that the only thing I've heard on the radio today I've had to listen to on the vertical instead of the dipole I've just spent a small fortune getting up at a decent height!

I was hearing some chaps in Geelong, and various others floating around the state. I heard some VK4s having a ragchew at one point. I managed to get a FT8 QSO with a VK8 while I had the G90 on the dipole. That's a first. 

I did call CQ a few times. As usual, no one wants to talk to me. As yet, I don't actually know if either of my HF radios can transmit a voice transmission more than the 2 feet between the radios. 

The board in the photo above - that's my distribution board - and it's not finished, so I'm not taking pictures of it yet. It has a copper bar to the left with a heap of 4 & 6mm earth wire soldered to it. They run down to a terminal block. That terminal block has the HF radios and the earth feed from outside going into it. There's plenty of bar left to upgrade in the future lol.

Below that is the GPO sized hole in the wall that the cables come through - there were two. One's covered over. At some stage when I'm not lazy, I'll pull that down, patch the other hole over given I've found the plaster I cut out and put it back up. 

At the bottom is the WARS powerpole distribution box. 

I'm still yet to actually re-organise all that wiring. It's a fair old mess, and I've not long tidied my desk with a view to it being still tidy when I knock off on Wednesday night for the Christmas/New Year/My Birthday break. I might get back to it post-Boxing day. Maybe.