I’m active again on 160m.
The inverted-L antenna I used before could be reinstalled without any issues, and the old measurements are perfectly reproducible.
At the moment, I’m only using 9 radials, each 1/8 wavelength long, which I hope will to be buried in the ground during wintertime. In a few weeks, additional temporary radials will be added.
The SWR is OK within my operating (CW and FT8) range of the antenna and is 1:1 with the help of the TunerGenius.
Over the past few evenings, 230 contacts have been logged, including 3 new countries (CU, OD, and T7), bringing my total number of unconfirmed entities to 99. Since I never received confirmation from JT1CO a few years ago, I hope to reach 98 confirmed DXCCs within a few weeks — just 2 more to go for 10-band DXCC.
The other day I picked up a single signal from ZS1J, unfortunately too brief to make a QSO, and yesterday I was heard in ZD9 and in Antarctica by DP0POL, but no one was active there at the time.
The most important thing is that the antenna clearly has potential. One of these days, the BOG will be connected so I can improve my receive performance.
