It’s the EA PSK63 contest. I had a decent run yesterday and this morning I was up nice and early to carry on my 15m single band entry. It snowed overnight, it’s raining now and very damp outside.
After twenty minutes I was working a run of Japanese stations and my IMD meter started beeping at me. A quick check showed my SWR at over 2:1 and I knew exactly what had happened.
The broken 15m element on my Hexbeam
The other end of the broken 15m element on my Hexbeam
I’ve worked another fifty or so on 20m but my heart isn’t in it, this was going to be a good single band entry and I really don’t want the same thing to happen to the 20m element. I will do a temporary fix as soon as the snow on the ground clears but I’m hoping that the new plastic spacers I’ve asked the manufacturer for will stop this happening again. Of course, I’ve been confident after previous fixes so there’s no guarantee.
In honour of this, I’ve created a new category on the blog, “Broken aerial” where you can read all about my aerial woes.