10 meters

So I had this old homebrew 10-m dipole. Been meaning to put it up for ages. Measured it up today and found that it was a little short (meaning its sweet spot would be a little high). Looked at the copper and decided to replace it. The wire I used was the very thin multi-strand stuff that Radio Shack sells/used to sell in a SWL longwire kit. I still had a bunch so I decided to take 35' or so, fold it in half, and twist it together. Tinned up the middle of the result, snipped it, and then attached it to the balun. Almost made it to short again (memo to self: cut them 1 foot longer than required!).

According to the borrowed SWR analyzer I have, the deepest part of the dip is around 28.400. That's excellent ... except that the SWR is 1.8:1. That's not bad and I don't even need the tuner for that, but it should be a lot closer to 1:1.

Anyway, I tuned through the band and heard a strong signal about 28.400. Called him and was 59 ... in Tucson. Seems like there was a bit of a Sporadic-E opening this afternoon. Heard a couple other stations, but only worked the W7.

HK0 was on today, too, down on 20 m, but I really couldn't hear the guy. HUGE pileup. Would have been #125.