Since the weather prediction was so good this weekend, except Sunday I decided to stay extra long at the QTH. Me and SM2LIY made the 40m beam ready to be lifted and we tuned it on Sunday, during quite windy weather but still not too windy to just lift the antenna for tuning. We hoisted it to about 20m above the ground during our measurements and after three attempts we had the beam VSWR dip where we wanted it. After that we attached mast to boom plates and made it all ready to be lifted.

SM3JLA showed up just over the day on Monday to help us. Also SM2XJP showed up as usual and helped us up with the beam. It all went very smoothly except I had to wrestle the beam in the tower since I remembered the width between the tower legs of being 400mm and not 450mm. This meant I had to move the driven element about 3cm so fit the boom/mast brackets and slide the boom inside the mast/boom plates since I had already attached one to the tower. But after 2.5h I was able to climb down again.

Next weekend if the weather allows, we will try to get the phase box up there to connect the stack so we can try it out. The phase box handles BIP/BOP and has an L-match matching the two 50 ohm antennas to 50 ohms. I have been thinking about making a new box in the future, which enables us to be able to just use UPPER/LOWER or BOTH, mainly just because I would like to be able to see the difference, not that I think it will be very useful.

However, according to HFTA and thanks to the statistic files N6BV sent me of SJ2W, the stack looks like it will be a real performer! Just check the HFTA plots of the 40m stack below and tell yourself. I have plotted the single beam at 60m, the stack and the stack out of phase.

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SM2LIY helped me this weekend to get the 10m Yagi up in the 60m tower at 46m height. We tuned the beam on Friday and had it ready for liftoff on Saturday morning. The local club SK2AU had planned a visit to SJ2W on 11:00 on Saturday, so we thought we would have no problem to be done in time for their arrival. But things took longer time as usual, since we decided to hoist the 1/2″ hardline (donated by SM0W) up the tower as well. So when I was hooking up the beam to the coax and attaching it to the tower they guys from SK2AU arrived. But I took my time and taped the coax up every m down the tower so now we just need to fit a connect in the bottom and attach the jumper cable between the cable post and tower.

It will be very interesting to see how well this beam works and to compare it with the 6/6el stack. I doubt that it will beat the 6/6 very often, but when there are marginal conds, sporadic E and during band openings/closings it should outperform the low stack. Also it adds a 2nd direction to the station, which is always good, especially now when 10m is finally showing some life again.

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This weekend was spent doing some various things getting ready to lift antennas up into the 60m tower. The 6el monobander for 10m was finished. The SM2WMV hairpin design is now even closer to perfection, as its mounted on yet another beam. I used the 3/8″ superflex coax I got from SG3P. Unfortunately I didn’t have any 7/16″ connector that did fit this coaxial cable, so I used a PL259 which fits perfectly and soldered that instead. So I will need to get an UHF->N->7/16″ adapter mounted. Not the perfect solution but I will seal it well so we don’t get any problems in the future with it. SM2XJP helped me a bit to finish it up and we flipped it around and attached the boom strut to it. Hopefully we will get it up this weekend and the goal is to also get the 3el for 40m up, but I am happy if we get far enough so its tuned and ready for lift off.

I climbed the tower on Saturday with a rope and block. After getting up to 52m I attached the block and with help of SM2XJP we hoisted the tram wire and the block up to the upper guy wire point. The block got mounted and it was a tough job lifting 52m+ of 8mm wire by hand, but as further down one came with the wire the easier it got, since the weight of the wire itself goes towards equilibrium when it reaches the ground. It was funny because when lifting the wire up to the block with the winch, the block I was using for the lifting rope made terrible noises. But after spitting on it a few times it did quiet down, innovation is the key to building a big contest station 😉

So now the tram wire is in place, the 10m yagi is ready to be tuned. So I am hoping to get to SJ2W on Thursday evening and if weather allows, we will lift the 10m Yagi on Friday. Then the next task is to hoist the 1/2″ coax if I have enough energy left. But if not we will continue work on the ground and hopefully getting the 40m Yagi tuned and ready to be lifted.

Also, big thanks to SM2RIX for giving us a bunch of 1/2″ superflex jumper cables with 7/16″ connectors! Thank you very much Rickard!

Here are some pictures from the weekend and also from SAC CW,

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