The day turned pout better than anticipated - no rain and only a stiff breeze. Consequently our plans to carry out 'mould busting' inside the building were cancelled and most of the team headed outside to take advantage of the fine weather.

After completing an eyeball audit of the antenna infrastructure and found that the feeder connections to the 80M vertical and the EU/AS 10M yagi antennas had broken in the recent high winds. These connections were duly restored. However, when testing the yagi antenna later in the day it was noted that the SWR was higher than normal, indicating that there is still another fault to be resolved.

We then spent some time investigating the difficulty in tuning the 160M sloping dipole antennas for a low SWR. We confirmed that the tuning was being influenced by coupling with the LF long wire antenna. Some adjustments to the configuration of the LF antenna were made to improve the SWR on the dipole antennas.

Inside the building, Ralph ZL2AOH took care of the usual housekeeping duties, including an audit of blown light bulbs and fluorescent tubes.

Thanks to ZL4TAC, ZL1AZE, ZL2AOH, ZL2TTS and ZL2ACG who came out to site to assist with the activities. Apologies were noted from ZL2AOV, ZL2BCW and ZL2AMI.

Posted by ZL1AZE on June 02, 2007