Some changes to the station and a quick update.

Latest addition to the station is a new (to me) Alinco DX-70 which has just arrived from the states.

In great condition although I have not had many contacts on it as yet so still no decision on performance. I am 50:50 on whether I prefer the receive on the Kenwood TS-120V.....

To coincide with this my main 10M vertical threw a wobbly and jumped to a SWR of over 10:1 across the board.

I assumed this was the feed line and dropped the antenna for a quick look....not the feedline. Tried to retune, no go. Took a while to notice that the antenna was shorter than usual. One of the screws holding two sections together had sheared and the antenna had telescoped by one section. New screw, retuned and away we go. Well almost. I don't have the same magical tuning with great resonance on 7Mhz and 28Mhz. Such is life.

The EFHWV (http://earchi.org/proj_homebrew.html) is up and running and it is a cool antenna. All set up for portable operation as a sloper with my 7 metre squid pole. I'm thinking of running one of these at the shack as a permanent if I can work out how to string it up with the vertical height I have. Speaking of portable I have dismantled my Dragon SS485H manpack.

I'm looking to rebuild something a little smaller and more self contained. Lighter more efficient batteries are on the cards as well as SLA batteries are just too heavy. Get this one sorted and some SOTA activations could take place.

I'm also picking up a 10 metre mast on Saturday and chopping it down to be a 6-7 metre mast with 3 metre boom. 1 pole = more antennas on it. I'm not decided on what to put up there yet but the UHF CB dipole I'm running is giving me poor performance so a vertical may be the go....luckily the pole comes with a 6DB and a 9DB vertical, only snag is I have to dismantle it as well.....still, the price is right. Gold Coast Amateur Radio Society (http://www.gcars.com.au/)had their annual hamfest yesterday and despite my best intentions I couldn't make it. Have to be next year.