New Zealand account is open

Great propagation into New Zealand the last few days on 10 metres. ZL2FT - Jason was coming in strong with a 5x9 signal and despite being plagued by frequency drift on my Kenwood we still managed a pretty good QSO.

I received a 5x9+10dB report from Jason and the first "+10 over" I've had with my little 10 watts. Very pleased.

I'll have a YouTube clip to follow shortly.

EFHWV

Thinking about the next antenna and I'm liking this end fed half wave vertical in the video below. I already have the squid pole (need to check the length) and just need the 9:1 transformer dooby and some wire...and some coax. Looks great for portable work or on the side of the car when stationary.

Special event station - Kesennuma earth quake

Just twiddling the dials and came across 8J7FUKKO special event station remembering the Kesennuma earth quake in Japan. A mouthful for us both to pass our call signs back and forth but a good contact.....and my first QSO video below:

Youtube inspiration

I've been spending a bit of time youtubing and thought I'd share 2 of my current favourites. There is of course the well-known GoatHiker (along with the goats Peanut and Rooster). Always enjoy seeing WG0AT - Steve operating mountain tops with his poor beasts of burden in tow:
http://www.youtube.com/user/goathiker

Next one is EC1CW - Diego. I stumbled across Diego's channel over Christmas and I think I've worked my way through just about all of his videos so far. Another mountain top operator Diego regularly activates a number of peaks for the SOTA program.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ec1cw

But of special interest to me is how Diego has contructed his Yaesu FT-897 based manpack. Definately something I'm looking to try in the future.