Field Day Antenna Building

So today we decided we would build a portable dipole to take to our Aunt Betty's field for an early field day next week since we were going to be on vacation during field day. We decided to build an Ugly Balun using two pieces of PVC fitting pipe in which we super glued together, then wound with our RG-8 coaxial cable which connects to the radio. The coax is connected to twin lead line that is 32 ft. in length. The dipole spans a total of 92'2". When we were completed with the antenna, we hooked it up to dad's HF rig, an ICOM IC-756 Pro. We were able to here some stations on a few bands which was a good thing as we built it to be a multi-band antenna. We made a couple test transmissions on 70, 20, and 10 meters without any issue.

Once we were done we wrapped everything up and stored it neatly so we can use come this next weekend. Anyway, that's all I have for now.

We will say 73.

Oh yeah, I forgot, I made my first HF contact on 10 meters this afternoon. I talked to K2WS, Alan in Long Island, NY. Anyway, Alan if you happen to read my blog, it was a pleasure talking to you this afternoon.

Tim
KJ4DLD