My Most Recent QSO's

Sunday, April 25, 2010

A Nice Inverted Vee Solution in the Mountains

I got a nice card from Pierre (VE2PID) from my contact while on the "Scenic Highway" a few weeks ago. He was one of my first 30 meter contacts and was also QRP from Sherbrooke, Canada. He was about 700 miles from my Richwood QTH at 4,000 feet. (I hope the snow has melted up there and they have the trees off the road by now).

I've always been concerned about getting a "dipole" in the air when you're up above the "tree line". This seems to be the answer when you choose to use your dipole as an inverted Vee. Pierre's signal was 599 at about 700 miles with 5 watts of power. He uses a collapsible pole and attaches it to the bike mount on his car.

I'll be experimenting with this configuration on the next "elevation" location. Although the maximum elevation is only a little over 4500 feet here in WV, finding two good tall trees can sometimes be a problem.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

With a mast that tall I think I'd go for a vertical configuration.

Jspiker said...

He sure sounded good! Difficult to find a tree that tall up there. Hihi
I think those masts draw down to about 4 ft when collapsed. Simple and effective...