Your Amateur station is unique....but just how good is it?

Hi all,

I do hope you are keeping well and most of all enjoying your radio pursuits.

I haven't written much of anything here on CT for a while and I hope I can slowly correct this, especially if my mumblings are useful or of at least some sort of interest....

Recently I had the kind help from volunteers who helped erect a new antenna installation for me. Yes, the lawnmower lead antenna has finally been 'upgraded'.....to a washing line!

The washing line is 20m long with the finest steel core being very strong and more importantly very cheap....but surely that can't work can it? Doesn't it have to be the finest 'oxygen free copper', multi weave, Kevlar reinforced, military spec something or other?!?

Well I thought I'd posted a video before but couldn't find it so here's some tests from our Australian friends in video form checking everything down to barbed wire(!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev_C0YeOuD4

Not much in it really is there?


Anyway, onto my point of the posting.

How well does this antenna work compared to the old one? 
Well luckily the old one is still in place (or rather it was but has now been removed for reasons we'll see) which allowed me to switch back and forth between them. No point randomly checking signals so along comes the aid of the IBP or International Beacon Project.

Never heard of IBP? Well then check out their site at the following link :-

https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/index.html

Very handy eh?

Now, I had quickly proved to myself that this new 'washing line' was doing much better than the old lawn-mower lead (it being much more stretched out and also in the open away from the house) but how well was it doing overall was another matter. Well I compared my beacon reception to the local 'webSDR' to me (Bedford) and you can find one near to you too at the following site :-

http://rx.linkfanel.net/

It seemed my 60 odd foot of washing line was picking up the beacons as well as their antennas which had me very pleased. (Especially considering it's much smaller and apparently a 'compromise' 9:1 long-wire. )

Now it wasn't as straight forward as it seemed, I had to play around with some counterpoise wire for starters, (this is where someone tries to argue it's an OCFD). I also had to play around with a 1:1 choke to prevent the station becoming  a counterpoise and luckily I had several toroids in stock to compare them. For the 9:1 Un-Un a T200-2 type worked...sort of, an FT240-43 type worked much better but the best of the bunch was a FT140-43 with minimal and well spaced wiring. (Flipping fun winding all them with my buggered old bear paw hands!) This however could be very different for you so if you can, then try every option especially if you can build them cheaply yourself rather than purchased options. For details of the type of thing I'm talking about so you can build for yourself you can find specifics at the following link :-

http://vk6ysf.com/unun_9-1_v3.htm

For the choke I used a tried and tested bifilar winding type on a FT240-43 toroid, a Guanella type, sleeve choke, etc. all worked just as well details of which can be found here :-

https://www.dj0ip.de/rf-cmc-chokes/different-kinds-of-chokes/

(I know, how grateful we should really be that all these fellow Hams share such details for us all. )


So, it works and all much better than the old lawnmower lead which has now come down. It did me well though, bagging a total of 101 countries around the world using FT8/FT4 often on minimal power of 5 Watts. (Still waiting on confirmations to bag me my QRZ DX100!) For the latter bracketed comment I hope this new antenna helps me achieve that.


Now, it's only when you start to compare yourself to other stations that you really see differences in your setup to theirs. How often has your radio friend down the road either picked up a signal you can't or even vice-versa? Happens all the time and hardly surprising considering our electromagnetic signals are bouncing, refracting, reflecting, ducting and all sorts of other phenomenon through, off and around what is essentially charged particles of atmosphere swirling around this ball of rock we inhabit.

I found large differences by comparing different webSDR's in various locations of the UK with such an example shown below :-




There was quite a difference with the Wessex SDR seemingly picking up way more beacons that my local one. But, if you give it long enough you'll find that just sometimes your local SDR or even indeed your very own station picks up one beacon that the apparently 'better' one doesn't. How good is that?!!

The exact same thing happens with ordinary signals that reach your station no matter how grandiose or simple an affair it is. Sometimes the effects are brief glimpses and other times across a fair passage of time giving you an ideal and unique opening for a QSO to your very own unique station.

So how good is your station?
You can make measurements, suppositions, awards, number of QSO's or even believe that factors such as how much your equipment cost you will affect the outcome but the reality is there is a lot of luck in what conditions were like, when you were on, how long you were on or other such things. 


Every station on air listening and transmitting is a great station.....and don't you forget it.  



Anyway, enough of my waffle and I hope at least one of the links or maybe thoughts comes in useful for someone. I wouldn't bother writing this 'guff' if I didn't think so.



All the very best,
Victor

I've run stainless wire here for ages, first on an EFHW, now on an OCFD, just to stop the damn wild parrots destroying it again.  The amount of expensive antenna wire I've lost to those bas*** prior still make me mad thinking about it!

BTW, a 9:1 EFRW can't really be an OCFD when it is one wire of a random length, can it?

My next project will be an end-connected OCFD though, which is another design Rick (DJ0IP) has shared in detail on his website.

Hi Jeff mate, I hope you are keeping well.

I remember you mentioning stainless wire before and the problems faced by your local wild life - thank heavens we don't experience such problems in other parts of the world!

Rick does have some great designs on his site, both items he's personally used or can recommend and I enjoy his writing style as well as thought processes.

Antenna discussions can open a whole ugly can of worms and really it should be down to what you can effectively put up with the only real 'compromise' being no antenna at all.


All the best,
Victor

Thank you for the writeup Victor, it's made me start thinking again about putting something similar up temporarily to try. Do you mind me asking: 

- Does it match up on the lower bands, 80m and 160m?
- If it does, are you still using your same matcher that you constructed or are you using something else?
- Again, if it does match up, you said you had to play around with counterpoise wire.. are you using more than one counterpoise or did you come to a nice set length that did the job for multiple bands. What sort of length is it? Is the counterpoise also outside? Perpendicular to the antenna, underneath it, or running backwards away from the main radiating element?

Sorry, lots of questions, but I have reasons to ask...

- I don't currently have a multiband antenna in operation. I pulled the fan dipole down for the summer to concentrate on 10/11m doing similar proper tests as you between my loop and cage dipole. Spoiler alert, the cage dipole was the loser and is now down and a temporary 15/20m fan dipole is up in it's place to give me a bit of radio action when 10m is being silent on me.
- I really thought the cage was going to do well and would become the centre piece of a new mega fan dipole that I would construct in the autumn, that now definitely will not go ahead, so looking for a different multiband option for the winter.. a "simple" long wire of some sort keeps going through my mind.
- I would venture outside for an antenna project like you if it worked on the lower bands. I'm theorising you have a bit more outside space than I, so to fit about 20m radiator I would have to utilise indoors and outdoors, through the loft then down to end of garden, and also have to L bend the last few metres.
- From my plays on 80m with an indoor wire previously, I had a mega length counterpoise that ran from my bedroom, down the stairs, and through the front room. I can't remember the length but it had to be around 15m ish. I am hoping you have got a lot shorter piece working?

If you're willing to answer any of my queries that would be great. Most of all though Victor I am really pleased for you that you have constructed something that works well and wish you all the very best with it and that you get some great contacts using it.

Hi Neal , I hope you are keeping well my friend.  

I don't mind anyone asking me anything and it's all the more enjoyable if any of my 'drivel' comes in handy.

Like you I'm limited for space and hence the typical self constructed antenna shenanigans we get up to! With a back garden only 33 foot or 10m long (the house is in the middle with an equally large front garden) I had to utilise the loft space as well. I gained a bit more outside length by running it as a sloper with the remainder going to the apex of the loft and then run back down the other roof line.

I know, it's a sloper but "not as we know it Jim".....

Fed from the upstairs front box room shack with 16 foot of coax to the 9:1 Un-Un in the loft, up to the apex of the roof line, down the other side but pops out of the roof half way down through the bathroom extractor fan vent tile. This then goes down to the back of the garden to an eight foot 'mast' (clothes washing line concrete post with a wooden post added!) only just about squeezing in the 20m length of the stainless washing line utilised. My volunteer did well to follow my instructions after handing them the self constructed Un-Un box and a length of washing line.

Yes, it's back to front, but it was easier to feed that way than having dirty big lengths of potentially lossy coax running across the house and out to the rear of the garden only to run back up the antenna.

It worked straight away with the feedline coax working as a counterpoise (the 1:1 choke is in the shack) but the SWR was higher than expected with a couple of surprises on the WARC frequencies. My volunteer returned and we first added a 12ft length of wire to the 'ground' side which improved things and then another 27ft wavering across the 22ft width of the loft space. (In opposite directions 90 degrees to the antenna.) Finally....the SWR was 1.8 or lower right across the bands from 160m to 6m(!)
(Edit: 80m to 6m, 160m was with the ATU Neal.)

As you know SWR isn't eveything and the antenna is definitely too short for 80/160m despite the 'match' but I can put out a signal good enough for FT8 work. (Summer isn't great for the lower bands so roll on the winter eh?)

40m and up has been awesome compared to the old lawnmower lead affair opening the Caribbean much more along with USA contacts and my first 'test' of the antenna saw me bagging Japan again but for the first time on 17m. The upper bands haven't been all that great recently as most of us are aware and I haven't had much opportunity to work the bands as much as I would like but it's early days yet.

So yes, works a treat (but will never be a DX buster which wasn't my intention anyway!) with the FT450 internal ATU keeping everything in touch. One wire, all the bands fun for my digital forays but I had a nice chat one evening into Europe on 40m SSB with a good 5/9 on my 25W as well.

That'll do me Tommy.  



I do have thoughts about extending the antenna down the front of the house (clear coating stainless clothes drying line is fairly 'invisible') and making it a much longer Inverted-L but we'll have to see. Like you we just can't seem to leave this antenna fun alone for long.

Hope that helps there Neal and apologies for not simply bunging up a diagram but you should get the gist of it from my 'waffle'. Oh and thanks for the kind words, we do try hard with our radio fun and I am as they say "well chuffed".


Take care mate and all the best,
Victor

My pennorth on long 'random' end fed wires!

When I first got my G1 back earlier this year, I was stuck with operating from the campervan on our front parking area until my garden cabin was repaired. This has now been done and I moved in last week.

To enable me to at least 'get on the air' from the van, I threw a 42 foot wire up into a conifer (not so high) with the feeder end 6 feet vertically down the house wall into a cheap Amazon 9:1 unun. I wasn't expecting anything spectacular, but its performance was adequate. All HF bands except 17 tuned well with the G90 internal tuner. 300 miles or more on 40m in average conditions was normal and compared well to the University of Twente webSDR. Which considering I live in a valley was pleasing.

When 10m was alive (sadly not recently) Mediteranean countries were booming in, as well at RoI and NI stations that I did manage to work with the G90. (still not got Wales yet Neal)

I'm limiting myself to only brief contacts at the moment as my 3 months using F/ ended some weeks ago and I still haven't been issued my French reciprocal ticket.

So, for anyone reading this and wondering why a 'random' wire isn't random at all, it's all to do with impedances. For example, you can string out a long wire matched to one HF band, and that will maybe work on one or more other HF bands (harmonics) with a bit of tuning. But with a 'random' long wire you must choose a length that is NOT matched to any HF bands so as to present a high impedance at the feed end point, this can be as high as 450 ohms. Insert a 9:1 unun between the long wire and the station coax and voila you have 50-70 ohms on most HF bands which is within the capability of most internal tuners. There are websites that list all the lengths suitable for an end fed random wire, I chose 42 feet, but there are shorter and longer lengths you can use. I did try counerpoises, but found an earth stake to work best.

My new 'random wire end fed, bought from Moonraker, is 41.7m long apparently and has a 400w 9:1 unun. I have a line of very tall poplar trees 50m or so from the garden cabin that should be perfect for a sloper.

For 10m, I've bought a telescopic fibreglass pole (extends to 10m) to which I'm going to hang a home brew vertical dipole.

Deb

Hi Deb,

Well this posting soon got boiled down to antennas, we all seem to be similarly inflicted.


An EFRW works wonders, much has been written about them and they do seem to be very forgiving in how they're slung up often working more than just adequately for our purposes. (I know, "random" wire but really needs to be less "random" than you'd think!)

My old Ham friend has the same 41.7m unit as you and luckily for him he lives just around the corner from Moonraker. (Everyone seems to have a bigger plot than me for stringing up antennas too!) He swears blind by it and enjoys being able to work multiple bands with it.

They're great (Tony the Tiger?) until someone tells you that they're not, or throws the old 'compromise' seed of doubt into the mix for anyone contemplating one. Easy to build or cheap to buy, can't go wrong really.


The main message I was trying to convey is that each of our stations are unique, as individual as ourselves but with a similar vein and often we pick up those elusive radio signals that others simply do not regardless of our station setup....sometimes. 

It's those 'sometimes' that really makes radio exciting for me and although a few like to be kitted up akin to a fully fledged commercial fishing vessel catching every bit of fish going, I like to sit by the bank with my little rod and see what bites.

(Often when the big-boys turn up blasting kilowatts it's best to fish elsewhere too!)


Look forward to hearing about your 10m dipole forays there Deb and lets hope that conditions pick up better than the rubbish we've had so far.

(I'm also now looking at a vertical doublet for 15 thru 10m after a kindly fellow CT member sent me a homebrew Z-Match unit to play with - There's some wonderful people out there tied together with this weird little hobby. )


All the best,
Victor

Victor wrote:

Hi Deb,

Well this posting soon got boiled down to antennas, we all seem to be similarly inflicted.

I agree, Victor. All our situations are unique. I know these pages are often viewed by those new to the hobby, so I thought a few words explaining end fed long wires wouldn't go amiss.

I've said in the past that I'm not interested in kw of tx, and I enjoy the listening just as much as the contacts.

The vertical 10m dipole I'm keen to build is, I believe, called the flower pot design. Basically, an end fed 1/4 wave piece of wire with a choke in the coax feeder wound on a pvc former just under a 1/4 wave to make the dipole. I wonder if you've tried such a thing and if so how did it perform? I will certainly post my results.

As for the uniqueness of our situations, some are lucky enough to live on a hilltop, while others, like me, live in a valley. Some have small (or no) gardens, while others have acres. I guess we all just have to make the best of what we have, but it does make antenna experimentation interesting.

Deb

Thank you Victor. Most definitely helps and has given me more to think about. Something similar could be just the ticket, it would free up a lot of loft space for other antenna experiments. Even that very short length for 160m should, even if not a DX machine, be a step up from the 10m delta loop and matcher I have used occasionally so far for that band.

On the topic of uniqueness, a mostly outside piece of wire might even reduce some of the data tone spikes I get every 30KHz from 15m to 2m from next doors security system as using a HT I have found the noise not so high in the back garden. Maybe that's not so unique to my station though, there's bound to be others who have similar issues in an urban environment.

Cheers for the help.

It's great to bounce ideas off each other there Neal especially if anything helps.

My old 'lawnmower lead' doublet ran across the width of the house (my QRM) so the ends were right next to the neighbours (their QRM). With the antenna wire now running across from front to back I pick up less noise and most of the antenna is hanging in the clear. 

I was worried about feeding it from the high point at the house but I did experiment feeding it from the other end in the garden (rig and battery sat on the patio) and honestly saw no difference whatsoever in either signal strength or noise.

I'm still toying with extending it down the front of the house as an inverted L to see if I can improve it even more and I'll obviously post up if I see progression.

Very 73

I've a temporary setup mimicking your plan Victor...

Fed from upstairs front bedroom with 26' of coax (that's what I had in situ for testing wires up in the loft) to a ferrite toroid choke with bisectional windings which is attached directly to a 9:1 Un-Un. The hot wire goes up towards the apex of the roof line, but not all the way up, across the roof and down and out of the building through a thin air gap in the roof facia. The wire then slopes down to the end of the garden to the top of the fence which is about 4.5' high and the last 9' turns at a 90 degree angle and runs through a wall climbing plant on the back wall.

For the counterpoise I have about the same length as yourself and have wavered it as I pictured yours in my mind, though our house is more about 15' wide so more compact.

Started with a hot wire of just over 55' as that’s all I could find (thin single core bell type wire from skips outside my better half's work place). That gave an SWR the transceiver could match easily on all bands from 6m to 20m. I then extended it to your length which gave a matchable SWR on 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, 40, and 80m, but too high an SWR on 6m, 20m, 30m, and 160m (I only just noticed your note about using your matcher on 160m, I will give mine a go on 160m). Think I need to shorten or lengthen a little to find the best balance over the bands.

Not the best time for initial tests yesterday as the Sun was firing stuff at us again, however I threw RF in FT8 and CW form out into the sky to see where it would get. On all bands I tried, my signal was shown on PSK Reporter and the RBN to be picked up by quite a few stations on many of the bands and UK and Europe, and I got a few FT8 contacts whilst playing including 8 on 80m. So it's radiating well enough.

Reception... whilst it is obviously receiving as I made contacts, the only band I have another antenna setup for is 10m which I can directly compare it against. Initial swapping between the delta loop and the "M7VIC multi band sloper" (I wait for you to name it) showed the data spike QRM I get every 30KHz reduced by 2 S points. That's pretty awesome. However I then did the same with strong FT8 signals and they were also up to 2 S points down.. not so good, possibly, though with other variables in play some signals were only half an S point down and one or two were actually the same level. If someone has a generally high noise level on 10m then pulling that noise down could be a good thing, but in between those 30KHz spikes I have a zero noise floor already with my Dora the 10m explorer delta loop.

Initial thoughts are that this could be a great multi band antenna for me for the winter, more for the lower bands which I haven't done a great deal with as yet. Will play with it for a few more days, but it won't be staying up permanently as it is. Even if it was going to stay, I think this wire will snap in short time so need to go skip fishing for something else. It's almost invisible though, which is a good thing. My better half didn't notice it when she came back from work last night until my daughter pointed it out.. thanks Chloe

Even though I have tried to mimic yours Victor, more on the topic of your thread title there's quite a number of aspects that make the two unique, not just including heights, counterpoise arrangement, and my isolating choke placement. Thanks for the inspiration. If by chance I manage to battle the Sun storms in the coming days for a good contact on one of the bands I'll update. Otherwise I look forward to using this one with a different piece of wire in the Winter.

Really good to hear about you playing with this type of antenna there Neal and that you're achieving successes with it.  

I think I just struck lucky with the overall length of the clothes drying line (very cheap, very strong, quite innocuous in clear coating) with only some fiddling of the counterpoise wires required. Although as mentioned I did play around with several types of toroid material for the Un-un until I was happy.

You could go comparing antennas until the cows come home but in all reality it's worth evaluating everything as an overall. I'm certainly happy that my one bit of wire covers so many bands and I can hop up and down them so easily.

As for the QRM issues I had similar woes....my own internet saw me upgrading the cabling the provider supplied....the HDMI signal to my VDU's was another issue fixed with better quality cables. Along with a homemade mains filter, new PSU and a plethora of ferrites on all my cabling my own noise was much reduced. I still pick-up the neighbours 'rubbish' but my QRM eliminator unit sorts out that mess when needed. (I have a 'noise' antenna made up of 50 foot of enameled wire helically wound around a mobile antenna and stuck in the loft - works a treat. )


It's all fun there Neal so long as we enjoy the whole process. I may not be able to clamber around stringing up my own antennas anymore but when I can catch a 'willing' volunteer there's no stopping me!


All the best to you there mate,
Victor

It's all luck, until it is about performance.

i.e. when you are making contact that others are not, which can also be argued is just luck I know. It's you location right ? Maybe sometimes and sometimes not.

I feel we have to set a precedent for ourselves. The choice between being the best you can possibly do or not. It is a choice you make as an individual and you deal with the consequences of that decision. (and other stations that could not work you.) 

The bottom line for me is I make damn sure every possible loss is negated within the means of operation and that max performance is achieved. This way I don't ever have to worry if I could have done a bit more.

That is important to me, even if it is not important to others.

By putting on the best station you can you also enhance other people's chances of making a contact. That should not be seen as being blown up or pedantic, it should be commended.

If everyone only did mediocre, there would be a lot less ham contacts being made.

That simply cannot not be good for the hobby.

If everything is great, how does one measure performance objectively/scientifically ?

Like everything in life I believe everyone should try and always do the best they can, not just enough. But other people's lives are not my life.

But do not envy others or be dissatisfied if your station is not DXing as well as it could because that was your choice.

Still no name there eh 'FreqFreak'?


The great thing about radio for me is that the subject matter is as diverse as the people involved in it.

With donated equipment, home constructed items and not letting my disability hinder me I certainly enjoy my radio pursuits as 'best' I can.

I do not feel 'mediocre' in any way, I feel I do my part for the hobby and I certainly do not 'envy' others in the slightest.


For some it's about the 'best-of-the-best-of-the-best' and for others it's all about doing the best you can, with the best you've got as best you're able....

I certainly aspire to the latter especially if I can help others achieve their goal of being on-air, which is certainly more preferable than belittling them in any way by informing them that they're simply not good enough.


All the best,
Victor

Very interesting thread and i hope it continues to grow.
I love playing aerials lol spent 2 weeks not long ago making a 7 band cobweb even tho i have one already being disabled myself it took a lot of time tuning but i got there in the end and now it is packed away in the old shack.
Not long ago i bought a CG-3000 remote tuner and installed it along with 88.5ft of stranded copper wire and it worked fantastic or so i thought.
Yesterday looking for something to do i put a vertical up just temporary as the station commander was out.
Seen some-ware about 17.5ft with a 4:1 balun so i had one i made some time ago and have loads of wire so up it went.
Fitted some counterpoise wires just random bits i had about me and ran the analyser on it and from 7mhz to 30mhz it was 2 or below so i plugged it in.
Worked well on most bands but the shock was 6m was alive again strange me thinks so i swapped over to the normal antenna silence on 6m band.
Just shows you  you think your antenna is working well until you try another.
Going to leave the telescopic pole up and see what the station commander say's she might not notice it fingers crossed.

FreqFreak wrote:

But do not envy others or be dissatisfied if your station is not DXing as well as it could because that was your choice.

I don't have an obsession with DX, and I certainly don't envy anyone - ever.

By the way, care to share your name and callsign?

Deb
G1DBS

Hope your washing line is continuing to do well for you Victor.

This morning before I took my better half to work she said "Have you seen what's on your line?" I looked out the door and saw the below on it. My response was "What the hell is that, do you know the first rules of antennas..." She cut me short with "If it stays there much longer the washing is going on it."



I take her words as being she wants it down before she gets back tonight, but am going to try and keep it for another day or two as haven't had as much time as I would like to play with it yet. I hope your good lady is more accommodating and tolerable to your constructions.

Neal.
Think about it.
Just lift it out of her reach lol.
My station commander would have flashing lights on mine if she could get to it.

I haven't had much chance for radio recently Neal, was busy organising a party with the Daughters for my Teresa's 60th.

All went well with a garden party, none of the guests noticed the antenna until one of the grandchildren pointed it out declaring that "Grandad get's all over the world with it!" (Then it became a conversation point for a while which was a pleasure. )

Mine's too high for anyone to even touch it (first rule of antennas ) and luckily my Teresa does not mind in even the slightest. You only have to remember how she clambered in the loft on my behalf to string up the last lawnmower lead. Bless her.

That's too funny though Neal and I would've cracked up laughing if that'd been done to mine.
(Thanks for posting the picture and giving us a smile.)

I hope you get a few more days out of it to try it further but you definitely need the next one to be stronger and higher up.  



All the best to you & yours mate from me & mine,

Victor


(Alan mate, now that your Linda has a bionic hip she might just be able to string lights on it after all. If it wasn't for our "station commanders" reining us in we might get all too wrapped up with this radio malarkey!)

She would need long stilt's Victor.
Starts behind the shack and too many spiders round there for her.
Then it goes to the top of a 10m telescopic pole and from there it ends up at the tv aerial in the roof. 
Fair plat to her she doesn't say much and even makes a joke if friends come round about getting her washing up on the cobweb.

Ha! Ha! Stilts!


We're very lucky to have understanding wives there Alan my friend.

Hope you had good weather for Teresa's birthday Victor. It's been pretty good here for some days so hope the sunshine extended your way too.

My washing line is now down. I didn't get to use it a lot, but was pleased to work some stations on bands I haven't been using for quite a while including first 80m ones since November last year including four on SSB and first 40m SSB contacts since October last year, one of which was with an old friend from 11m days who I met up with and who passed on a new to me, but old, bit of kit for me to play with (will make a separate post on that item).

Thanks again for the inspiring post. Sorry for steering away from the uniqueness topic to more that of antennas, it's hard for me not to. It was definitely worth me trying to mimic the your antenna you described. I have given my better half notice that I will probably be putting up something similar to play with in the depths of winter. If you make any further tweaks to yours that improve it any way for you then I'll be interested to learn on them and I wish you many nice contacts using it.

No worries there Neal my friend, it's certainly been great seeing everyone's responses and very enjoyable.  

Glad to hear that you got to work some lower bands with your rendition of the antenna and I wish you well with a future or more permanent installation of a similar vein. I will as per usual post up any further findings I make with my own experiments especially if anything is useful to anyone.

As ever I'll look out for your own as well as anyone else's postings especially pertaining to this fantastically rewarding hobby we all so enjoy.


(Party went well, lovely weather and even good enough to get the 'big' pool out for all the grandchildren to have some fun! My Teresa said she had a fantastic day and was enjoyed by all.....you couldn't ask for more.)


Very 73 to you Neal and everyone else involved making CT a place for all to enjoy,

Victor