Using The YAESU FT-4X Portable - Beamsley Beacon Summit N.Yorkshire

-
When Elsie M7ELC obtained her foundation amateur radio licence my good friend Pat W0OKE, Norm and the whole Portland Oregon HRO team sent her a fantastic first radio to celebrate her achievement as at that time, 2021, Elsie was 10 yrs old . She was very happy to receive this lovely radio which is the YAESU FT-4X. She uses it every now and again but not as often as the mobile FT-857 or shack station. So I decided with her permission to give it a go myself. After all my FTDX-101MP gets her attention so its a fair deal.

  
 So today's adventure was to hike to the top of one of the local trig points about 15 miles to the North West of Baildon. The exact location is overlooking Bolton Abbey situated higher up above on Langbar Moor and is known as Beamsley Beacon which is 1300 FT ASL. 

A great walk and also spot on for VHF UHF QRP. 



 The YAESU FT-4X is really nice radio to operate and is nice and simple to use so with my eyesight not as good as it was I found it great. The most impressive bit was its clear receive quality and from the reports it gets out well. When I got back home I ordered a 1/4 wave (aprox 40cms long) antenna to try it with next time around. I definitely would recommend this radio after using it. If you had two of these dual band radios your well on your way for the satellites and ISS. All you would require further is an Arrow antenna or something similar. Anyway back to Beamsley Beacon with the video of the adventure below.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Full Size Delta Loop for 20M

-
Image
I came across a simple delta loop design courtesy of dxzone found on the net some time ago and have been planning to give it a go for a while. This weekend I had a couple of hours spare, so I decided to give it a go using some 2mm multi strand wire cable, a dipole centre and a mixture of 75 ohm and 50 ohm coaxial cable. The delta loop is supposed to be resonant on 20 meters but I found it to be a little high so at present I am tuning the Loop with my mfj-969 which copes extremely well. The resonant frequency is 13.2 MHz at the moment so the next chance I get, I shall shorten the overall length making sure that each of the three sides are still equal in length, and hopefully adjusting the antenna for maximum performance ATU free for 14.2 MHz. I believe the miscalculation in the resonant length is probably down to the fact that my wire is covered in the plastic sleeving from the manufacturer which always effects the swr as I have noticed in past experiments with dipoles you always get sl...
Read more

Homebrew 40/80 Trap Dipole Design

-
Image
This Antenna design was one that I used about 4 years ago, it worked exceptionally well on 80m and 40m. The size of the antenna makes a Half wave length on 80 meters, and with the traps a half wave on 40m with a SWR (standing wave ratio) of 1:1-1.5 across both bands. It worked well also on 20m with the use of an A.T.U (antenna tuning unit). I made my version of this antenna using 3mm multi strand copper cable which I left covered by the PVC insulation. The traps can either be home brewed using some 40mm diameter plastic drain pipe and winding wire around the pipe approximately 10 turns, then connected in line after the 10 metre lengths. Or the alternative is to purchase some commercially made 7.1 MHz traps, and fit them in line the same way. The antenna can be fed with 50 ohm coax with a home brew balan or again a commercially purchased balan. The wire lengths of the dipole are 2x 10 metres and 2x 6.7 metres as shown on the diagram above. This antenna can be mounted quite low to the gr...
Read more

YAESU G - 5500 Elevation Rotator Repair

-
Image
After 10 years of careful use my G-5500 eventually developed a couple of faults on the elevation rotator side.  Fault 1. For the past year I have had to guess the elevation as the readout was no longer working on the controller unit. I suspected the position switch which was located inside the rotator up above the house roof which was a pain in the butt to say the least. Fault 2. Over the winter the gearbox on the elevation rotor seized up solid. I plucked up some courage and erected my ladder and which with the aid of a rope to lower the mast it all worked out quite straight forward. Once down out with the impact driver and away I went. Once I split the case with the impact driver which was easy, I found lots of sandy grit and dried out remains of what should have or once was gearbox/bearing grease. The next step was to inspect the seized gearbox and then remove the main shaft which can only be carried out by first removing the entire gear housing u...
Read more