A number of my upcoming activations, like the obligatory trip to Afton Marsh to complete the local parks, or the extremely ill-advised attempt to summit El Teide, are going to involve getting on the radio with equipment limited in size and weight. To that end, my friend F4LUB sent me an antenna that was surplus to requirements, in exchange for a donation to charity. Today I decided to give it a try on a quick afternoon activation up on Blacknoll Hill, part of GB-5718 Tadnoll & Winfrith Heath.

This is a quick walk up from a lay-by at the side of the road, and I aimed to set up the antenna with my X6100 on top of the easily accessible trig point there. I had a 3D-printed part that purported to support the BNC connector on the side, essential to avoid the fairly significant weight of the antenna pushing it downwards. This just about worked, but unfortunately it wasn’t a tight enough fit to stop the thing rotating, letting the antenna fall over on its side.

In the end, I had to relocate to the ground, leaving the antenna propped up against the trig point to provide it some support.

Tuning was challenging; the antenna seemed to need to be a good deal shorter than the leaflet suggested in order to provide a decent match, but I did eventually achieve a length that the X6100 auto tuner could bring below 2:1 on both the 40m and 20m bands.

However, I managed a whole… zero contacts, on either band.

Reception of other stations seemed to be reasonable at first, but in 20 minutes of operating the only response to my CQ calls I heard was a very faint response from EA1BUL, and I couldn’t complete the QSO. Clearly the antenna wasn’t working as expected, probably due to resting it against a big stone with a metal bit in the top!

As they say, two is one and one is none. So, of course, I had a spare antenna. Rather than leave the hill empty-handed, I strung up my home-made 40m dipole, and made 18 contacts to complete the activation.

Reception with this antenna was suddenly much better, of both my contacts and the QRM from nearby industry—this spot is, after all, next to a former nuclear reactor.

So, a disappointing result for the vertical whip today. I need to look for a better way of keeping this upright, possibly just pairing it with the FT-817 and its front-mounted antenna connector. And despite the leaflet claiming no counterpoise is required, from my difficulties tuning it I would say it quite possibly does. But having it only work with the 817 does limit my potential output to 5 watts rather than 10, and demand a bigger bag, which is yet another potential complication for a Teide activation. Some kind of small, low tripod might be viable, with coax and counterpoise, but at this point I’m just recreating the JPC-12 that I already have (and don’t really want to climb a mountain with).

So, the search for a “magic” QRP HF pedestrian mobile antenna continues. I’ll keep persevering with this one—though maybe I should also start saving for the Elecraft kit.

Nevertheless, the activation was successful and it was a nice afternoon for playing radio on a hilltop. Thanks to all my contacts.