Just a quick update on the above.
A large throng of members (up to around a dozen on and off) attended the hall this morning, and together with the really handy guy from Aerialbeam, we managed to get all three new/replacement antennas up on the roof and all cabled into the shack.
The plan was to leave the 2m and 6m beams alone on the rotator, so no change there. Both are a little out of tune, but work OK, as does the rotator.
The 6m 2m 70cm colinear was replaced like-for-like with another Tri-Band Comet GP-15N for the same bands, mainly because the old one was apparently a bit sick.
The broken G5RV was replaced with a horizontal End Fed Half Wave antenna, resonant on 80m 40m 20m 15m and 10m. This will also tune on the WARC bands with an ATU. It's around 23m long overall, including a loading coil and 2.4m extension for 80m. This fitted perfectly between the two existing poles front and back of the hall, almost like we had planned it that way, which we hadn't!
All the lanyards were replaced, but the pulleys turned out to be serviceable and were therefore re-used.
The additional antenna is a Wellbrook Magnetic Loop - ALA1530AL which covers all of HF from 20kHz to 30MHz. This will be connected to the new KiwiSDR web-enabled receiver, but could also be used generally as an HF Rx-only antenna for any receiver. It's an active antenna using a 12V supply provided by a BIAS-T in the shack. Both the antenna and the KiwiSDR will be powered up and running 24/7. The Wellbrook is particularly good at low frequencies, but is directional and was be set up with the maximum gain east-west.
The EFHW and mag-loop were cabled with all-new Mini-8 coax into the shack, while the Comet Tri-Bander used the existing coax for VHF/UHF.
We did do some very brief testing, and it was obvious that we were getting something useful out of all three new antennas. More analysis and testing will take place over the next few weeks and months.
All that remains to be done is the installation of the KiwiSDR itself and some cable routing, plug-soldering and tidying up.
All in all a very successful day.
Huge thanks to everyone who played their part.
Berni M0XYF
