Hello all, I thought I would share this with everyone.
Yesterday (10/30) I spent some time setting up my new 10m moxon antenna in a portable configuration. This consisted of my 40ft spiderbeam fiberglass mast mounted in a flagpole stand that fits into a 2" hitch. The mast was then guyed at around 20ft and above that the antenna was mounted. On each segment of the mast in addition to the twist friction lock I also placed hose clamps on each segment to prevent the mast from collapsing.
The antenna itself is a two element rectangular beam (moxon beam) made from 14awg wire and suspended by four 10ft fiberglass fishing pole I bought from Walmart ($10 each). The fishing poles are secured to the base with pipe straps that I covered in a rubber lining to prevent damage to the poles. To take up any slop in the mount I wrapped the base of the poles in friction tape.
The beam was designed using a program called moxgen and is relatively simple to construct. I just cut the wire to length (on attempt two I took 4% off the length of each segment to adjust for the velocity factor of the pvc jacketed wire) and then from there used my nano vna to adjust to resonance. From what I’ve read and in my own experience the FB ratio is more dependent on the reflector and the swr is more dependent on the driven element.
Sunday happened to be CQ WW contest and I couldn’t help but get on and maybe make a few QSOs.
Standing in a grass field with my go kit on the back of the truck I didn’t expect too much but what I got was more than I could have ever hoped for. I’ve heard the stories of yester year where you could work the world with a wet noodle, well let me say that yesterday was as close to that as I’ve had in my few short years as a ham.
When I turned on the radio and pointed it towards Europe I was greeted by absolutely insanity, it was nothing short of 600kHz of DX as far as the waterfall could see. In the half hour I recorded the audio I made 20 DX QSOs in a row. Ill post my QSOs map below, all the yellow spots are QSOs I made yesterday.
I just wanted to share this with everyone and let y’all know 10m is very much open and is indeed the “magic band”
73s de KD9MEQ
