Lighthouses and Lightships Weekend GB0NFL 2015

We set up as usual in Joss Bay car park overlooking the beach.
The usual dipole antennas and a 100W HF SSB transceiver powered by a 12V – 110 Amp-hrs battery were used of which the Club owns two. A fully charged battery provides approximately six hours of operation. The silvery-fronted box atop the transceiver provides separate volume controls for the earphones of operator and logger and a speaker for bystanders.

In two days of operation we only managed fifty 7MHz QSOs. That was not for lack of operators. To blame were the poor conditions on both 7 and 14 MHz which have prevailed most of the month but at least the weather was fine both days.
Matt M0LMK was seen repairing a broken plastic piece of a Sotabeam Link Dipole. He, Clive G1WCR and Len G0GNQ then installed it as an Inverted-V dipole above the long wire fence separating our site from the steep slope down to the beach.
Using the new antenna analyser, they found that on each, 7 and 14MHz, the best SWR was obtained with the properly set link and the dipole centre a quarter wave above the top fence wire which probably has acted as an effective counterpoise.