Portable in the back garden (again!) - CQWW SSB

As conditions had been humming on 28MHz throughout the week, I decided to concentrate on that band.  While the usual doublet antenna sort of works, could I do better within the constraints of time available and space?

 I had experimented with half wave end fed verticals during one of the Pacific DXpeditions a couple of years ago with very mediocre results.  I now believe that was due to the cheap "fibreglass" mast being either lossy or conductive. 

So this time the 20m Spiderpole (not at full extension!) was used.  The bottom of the antenna is in the plastic bag above the tree line in the top picture at about 20 feet..  The matching circuit was thrown together at the last minute and was based on the parallel tuned circuit used for the last attempt on 18MHz.  The torroid now classes as "unknown type!" and had 16 turns on it with a two link winding - the 8:1 ratio mentioned in many articles.  For the available variable capacitor this was way too much inductance so the winding was reduced to 10 turns.  This allows tuning from below 14MHz to above 30MHz which makes for a good general purpose tool for future experiments.  Links windings didn't work well to provide a good match so using the network analyser I tried a number of tapping points to get a good match.  This was somewhere between 1.5 and 2 turns.

Does it work? - WOW !!!!  On longer paths it was 2 to 3 S points better than the doublet.  On nearer European signals it was better on most signals.

Due to lack of time, and a failure to get up early enough on Sunday for the Far East, I was only active for about five and a half hours.  All operation was search and pounce - there is no point me calling CQ in an HF SSB event with 100 watts and a wire antenna!!  The band was full from 28.2 to 29.2 MHz.  I worked 201 stations in 45 countries.  North and South America produced excellent signals, though for some reason the Caribbean signals were rather weak.  Even a number of W7's were worked which is normally a black spot for me.

Bring on CQWW CW and the ARRL 28MHz !!