Shack

Starting out - 2m & 70cm

Like many others who have joined the hobby in recent years, the availability of cheap, portable VHF/UHF radios was my first purchase. I owned the radio months before even starting the Foundation course, and used it mostly for listening to the aircraft in and out of Bristol airport. I got a Baofeng UV-5R8W followed very quickly by the Quansheng UV K5; neither is better than the other, but they are fun to play with. The ability to flash 3rd party firmware that upgrades the response and ability of the radio was another massive draw.

By November, I was deep into the Foundation course and started getting excited about the ability to be able to speak on air in a few weeks. With the course passed late in December, I purchased my next "level entry" radio, the Retevis RT95. With all its faults, it worked okay with the Comet GP-3 that was placed temporarily in the loft. I also purchased an Ailunce HD1 DMR handheld. Early in 2024, we went on holiday to Thailand and shortly after I had the Comet mounted on the apex of the roof and started looking for an HF rig.

HF - First Love / Rigs & Handhelds

I started my love affair with radios as a teenager on CB and then purchased a secondhand Heathkit shortwave receiver from a radio rally. This opened the world of shortwave to me. After a few weeks, I threw a long wire antenna over the roof of the house, and the reception doubled. I later joined the army and trained as a radio operator, spending more time than I would care to remember lugging an HF man pack up and down the training areas of Europe. Many years later, as a newly licenced operator, I am looking for my first HF rig. I spent some time looking at the options and ended up with a Yaesu FTDX10. It was mid-winter, and the idea of trying to get out and put up an antenna was not appealing, so I went for a loft antenna. I won't say the make, it was not worth the money. As the spring arrived, I got out and set up a UK Antennas multiband EFHW 80-10, resonant on most bands and extremely easy to tune.

I loved the FTDX10; the reception takes some beating, but what really annoyed me about it is the way they hide the band selector by the VFO. Within 6 months of purchasing the FTDX10, I part-exchanged it for a Yaesu FTDX101D. The difference is night and day. I won't go into detail here about the qualities; there are plenty of sites breaking these down. The immediate difference was the band selection and the noise reduction tools.

Along with the hardware, I use the following software:
Win4Yaesu - an outstanding set of tools to manipulate the radio, with many programmed macros for ease of use.
Station Master Cloud (version 2) - cloud-based logging software with many built-in links to worked station maps, PSK reporter, QRZ, SDR, MUF & weather maps.
W-SJTX - for FT8 and JTAlert for ease of tracking contacts.

There is plenty written about the FTDX101 (both variants), and I went for the D on cost alone; I won't bore you with the features. The rig came with a free SP101 "speaker", and there is a good reason it's free. I followed an online guide and quickly swapped out the awful internal speaker and added some dampening material inside to make the sound even half decent.

The size, in comparison to the FTDX10, is "big" and now takes half the desk space. The picture to the right is not mine, just for comparison.

I recently traded in my Icom 705 for a Yaesu FT-897D, complete with LDG tuner and FP-30 psu. Very different radios, but since purchasing the Xiegu G90, the 705 was not getting many outings, plus the 897D is capable of SSB on 2m and 70cm. When the FT-897D box arrived, I rushed to open it, only to find that in the bottom box was the Clarifier knob, so the radio went back for warranty repair. It does not help with the age of the radio and the fact that Yaesu have stopped producing many of these parts. I am contemplating finding another as a donor radio.

Antennas

I have a small south-facing garden, a garden that, when you think about HF antennas, screams of compromise (a word I have grown to loathe). I have a few limitations, limited lawn area, a station commander who does not want large verticals, it's actually her garden, so I have no grounds to fight, and some large trees along the southern fence.

The first antenna to be installed was the dual-band Diamond X-50, which had been in the loft since passing my exam in September 2023. I employed a local company to install a mount and put the antenna in place (heights and I don't really mix), and suddenly, the world of VHF/UHF was open to me. It's up high and not noticeable, so ticks the boxes.

It was mid February 2024 before I was able to put up a suitable HF antenna, and having planned everything through it was only a case of gathering what I needed. I opted for a UK Antennas 40-80 shortened EFHW with an 80m coil; this has served me very well. To fit it into the garden, I needed to create a dog leg. I had a gardener friend install a concrete mounting pole behind our sheds for the centre V pole, and the trees at the bottom of the garden are large conifers and had recently been trimmed as they were originally higher than the house. SWR is low on 80, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m. With the internal ATU 17m, 15, and 12m are also available. Any tuning is completed by the 101's internal ATU.

The antenna wire is about 20 meters, including the coil extension, and fits the space I have. Initially, I used a DX Commander 9m pole behind the shed, but this has way too much flex and led to the wire rubbing against the wall of the house.

I eventually replaced it with a telescopic aluminium pole from Moonraker, which, although it had a fair amount of give, is a lot higher. The antenna is mounted in an inverted V at 8m in the middle, on the right day, the recently modified angle ensures the signal take-off gets me into Alaska and Australia without much effort.

For a short while, I had mounted a vertical Rybakov antenna over the winter of 2024/25. The 7.6m radiating wire was attached to the DX pole and hidden in the trees. A 4:1 UNUN connected the radials, borrowed from my Slidewinder kit, were placed around the base and across the lawn. As a temporary antenna, I would be extremely happy with this at any location as a backup.

The loop always seems to punch above its weight; the simple design, easy construction and lightweight build make it ideal for a small garden and single-person setup.

Don't make the mistake I did and measure the SWR from the UNUN, measure it from the end of the coax in the shack! It is quoted as omni-directional, but I find it reaches well to the west into North America and back east towards Japan.

My secondary is a small multiband is a G4KYB Delta Loop, which, even hidden in a tree at about 6ft high, performs outstanding for the size. Initially, I mounted it on a speaker tripod, then tested it in the tree to see if there was any dip in coverage; there wasn't, and so for now, at least, that is its resting place. The SWR is good across the 40m to 6m bands, and any tuning required is well within the internal ATU's capabilities.

I have plans to, at some point, mount this higher on the side of the rear extension. As a cheap delta loop, this performs extremely well. It's lightweight, sturdy, and the instructions are easy enough to follow - even for me.

Does it work? Extremely well, I will post WSPR reports in the future.

I have a G7FEK Multi Band antenna, built by Gerry (G4SPE), awaiting my health to tune and test. It is aimed to mount this above the EFHW on the 10m pole.

This small garden antenna is an 80m, 40m,30m, 17m, 15m, 12m and other bands with ATU 20m, 10m. With a coil, this antenna can also work with 160m.

There is much debate about the abilities of this antenna, and I will post the results, in comparison to the EFHW and loop, when I have a chance.

AWK Antennas 20m - 4m Cobweb

In the never ending exploration of better antennas, I recently purchased a Cobweb 7 20-4m multiband cobweb antenna from AWK Antennas in Poland. I emailed Pawel, who was extremely helpful and helped me make my decision. I eventually made my decision to purchase the 20-4m version. After a few weeks' wait, the box finally arrived, and I contacted my very good friend Gerry (G4SPE again) to help me get it into the air. Luckily, the weather gods were smiling on us, and we had a mostly sunny day, with very little wind. So, armed with a fresh coffee and some toasted tea cakes, we prepared for battle.

Removing it from the box, the antenna is in two parts with the aluminium base in one half, wires and spreaders in the other half. Anyone reading this with the intention of purchasing the antenna - watch this video. I recommend building this antenna with two people, joining the two sections and manoeuvring the cobweb is so much easier. Luckily, I had a tripod mount, and we were able to prepare the cobweb on that before attaching it to a pair of bolted-together poles.

We checked the SWR, which was as expected across each band; they tend to have narrow bands, and an external ATU is required on some bands. Once mounted on the poles and coax prepared for the elements, I passed the completed antenna up to Gerry, on the extension roof, to bolt to the clamps already on the side of the building.

We did some initial testing, and the results were impressive. Later in the day, 6m opened for a short while, allowing contact to Sweden and Norway, a short blast, and I made 16 contacts on FT8. On 20m I also made contacts in Thailand, China and the UAE, also on FT8 - current band conditions mean anything could happen, but mostly nothing will happen.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the antenna. When conditions allow, I will carry out some wspr testing, along with the EFHW and the Rybakov, which has survived the spring garden clean-up. Today, 25 May 2025 and 3, we have 20+ mph gusts and the mast/antenna hardly moves - let's hope it lives up to its reputation and stays aloft during storms.

Tools and Accessories

I have an assortment of tools and "toys" that I use for the hobby, nothing exciting and not very exotic. The list includes:

NanoVNA - AliExpress special, updated the firmware a few times, and it works exactly as it should.

Rig Expert AA-35 - Outstanding analyser, especially for beginners in the hobby. I will look to upgrade this to the Rig Expert MATCH upgradeable antenna analyser at some time in the future.

Heil Pro 7 - I'm not a lover of over-the-ear headsets, but this helped change my mind. They are comfortable and very easy to configure. I didn't need to make many changes to the rig to get the best sound quality. I have cables from TechnoFix, so the headset can be used in either of my rigs. I went for a generic stage keyboard's foot switch for less than £10 that stays put, rather than a £35 foot pedal that goes for walks under the desk.

Yaesu M-90D - This desk microphone is again easy to switch between rigs; it's a good mid-range microphone with similar EQ settings to the Heil Pro, so I don't need to reconfigure when swapping between them.

SDRPlay RSP1B - A recent acquisition to test Station Master Pro beta and integration with Win4Yaesu.

BHI NES10-2 Mk4 - This noise-reducing speaker is phenomenal, making poor, noisy contacts audible again. It needs a second or so work out the incoming signal and start to clean it.

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