Back in mid-February 2021, my vertical half-wave for 10-metres cracked into two pieces after a windy few days. After seeing half of the antenna sticking out of a hedge, I had pretty much given up on it and thought it was a dead duck.
I looked at other options such as buying a new antenna or building something and didn't really decide on anything.
With the current spell of mild dry weather over Ireland, I finally got around to examining the broken antenna this weekend. It had a reasonably clean break so I cleaned it up, cut off a damaged section with a hacksaw, put in a slot for the lower section to compress and tighten and hey presto, it's back in action!
As the antenna was so wideband anyway, losing 10cms or so of it had no impact on the VSWR at the bottom end of 28 MHz.
I left on the radio on 28 MHz today and this is what I heard on the FT8 frequency...
There is evidence of some weak Sporadic-E around Europe as well as some F2 propagation to Israel, Africa and Brazil. The solar flux is down at 74 which is pretty much rock bottom.
I have to admit that I have a soft spot for the 10-metre band. Even though I have no real interest in making contacts, it's good to be back listening on the band again.
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