Telescopic masts – Solar Powered Field Station

The first of two telescopic masts have arrived. I’ll be using the telescopic masts for two different antennas, on deployment with the solar powered Field Station. Naturally and just in case it isn’t obvious, I’m not suggesting anyone carry to telescopic masts, while operating on foot! Like anything else we’re trying to build a tool box.

Broadband dipole – firstly there’s the Broadband dipole. The Broadband dipole is used when there is a need to deploy an ALE, MARSALE, or fill-in WinLink gateway in the field. Stations are constantly scanning multiple HF bands. To reduce station complexity, an antenna which requires no tuning, is preferred over complex tuner, (imho) provided the antenna is as efficient as possible.
I’m told there’s a new lightweight version on the way to me. We’ll feature that on the channel when it arrives.
Halfwave endfed – The second wire antenna is the Mono-band Halfwave Endfed. A mono-band halfwave endfed is probably the best performing antenna I can think of. I’ll be using these for FSQ, WinLink, or any other mode which requires me to sit on a single band for any length of time.

The halfwave endfed match boxes come from Crosscountry wireless.These single band units use a built-in bandpass filter, allowing secondary TX, or multi-transmitter operation from the same location, while providing excellent rejection of local medium wave transmitters. I’m missing the 40m versiin, but will order it soon.