Stuff to do...

 I received a SARK100 analyser yesterday that I was convinced was faulty. 

Then I realised that it was being thrown off by the vertical having an arrestor inline connected to earth, so that was probably the cause of the impedance going mental. 

On the dipole it was a lot better.. but not where it *should* be. As I've tested my way back towards it, I've discovered that there's probably a few logical problems if I'm chasing getting it close to resonant somewhere around 40m (it should be resonant at 40m after all). The first obvious one was that I've got ladder line coming down from it to the ground, currently going into what I think is a 9:1 balun. I do have a dodgy 1:1 but I removed recently as it'd rusted out. 

It's finally dawned on me that the ladder line was extending the antenna out. Straight down.. between two houses. I've ordered a 1:1 balun kit from TET-Emtron. I'm going to assemble that and attach it to the centre of the dipole. It adds weight I don't really want, but I think I need to get back to that. 

Looking at the effectiveness of the antenna 12 months ago vs now, there is a difference. I'll just have to deal with going back to running coax up to it. 

It's also getting on time to loose the Sigma Euro HF-80 vertical. It has worked for what I've used it for - mostly FT8. Not much good for anything ground wave, but it's served its purpose as a permanent antenna. I'll probably keep it for other uses. 

I'm thinking of a Hy-Gain AV-640. It's about the same height. It reportedly can survive without guys (even better though I'd eventually get to adding some). It has counterpoises, so no radials, and it's rated pretty well. It looks like it'll be a mission to assemble though, so I won't be in too much of a hurry.

The screwdriver project is getting closer to completion. I'm still awaiting the 5v regulator so I can mess around and see which way I want to wire it up. 

Somehow sadly I managed to get the Anderson plug covers the wrong way around on my distribution box.. and sealed them in. Annoying, but I'm not rebuilding it.