Barry, SA7GDB is a long-term member of the MSARS 15m lunchtime net, and has recently sold his farm and moved to a smaller (relatively) premises with two large old timber barns.
After many struggles, he has now completed the re-installation of his Hexbeam, in the hope of resuming the 9+15 reports he regularly received from us here each lunchtime.
Putting up such a beast doesn't come without it's challenges as you can imagine, and other than the cherry-picker required to mount the thing in the first place, Barry has strategically placed a couple of small rocks 😲 to anchor the necessary guy wires, thus ensuring that the antenna stays put for the foreseeable future.
I think you'll agree that over-engineering in this regard is never a bad idea!
Barry does seem pretty happy with its initial performance, as you can tell from his slightly cheeky email to Ken:
Well. It’s up in the air at 46 feet, see photos. Spoke to a dejected Dave yesterday, who told me to take it down again 😊 said my signals were peaking at 15 over 9.
Haven’t received the bill yet, but its up now. Also, I could snatch a few spoken words with Bob in New Jersey on sideband and his CW was STRONG at 5/9++ 😊.
I could 'just about' hear Phil, walking around in the street /PD (pedestrian mobile!)
An Italian station called in to the net and I seem to be the only one who could hear him in Europe. I asked the boys - Dick, Gavin and Chris? But no. Dave could and did, say hello to him though 😊
Hope to have a 'direct-radio-net-contact' with you soon Ken.
Many thanks to Barry for sending over the photos. I was receiving Barry at 20 over 9 on Tuesday's net, before dropping back to zero, but it's certainly working in between the waves of poor propagation.
Berni M0XYF
