Chapter 8

So a few weeks ago, I start making preparations for the Mid-Atlantic QSO Party on Mother's Day weekend. I downloaded a new piece of software - WB3W's MAQP software, found at http://www.wb3w.net/wb3wlogs_MAQP.htm - set it up, and played with it a bit. Some testing of the station was done, making QSOs on 75m and 20m.

The dipole was moved from directly over the summer kitchen to between the main house's chimney and one of the tall walnut trees behind the carriage house. Finally it had dawned on me why the parallel dipole never really loaded on 20m - with its proximity to the summer kitchen's galvanized metal roof, the dipole's loading when completely wonky. Now the 20m dipole worked (after a fashion). The first contact made with the repositioned dipole was Ukraine, a 59 USB report with about 90 watts.

The vertical still works better, though; I made a few side-by-side comparisons, and the vertical just gets out better. The dipole is better on receive, being slightly more quiet.

Now it's a matter of waiting a few weeks for the MAQP to begin.