Eventually, we have some progress

A while ago I had my first attempt at getting a VHF/UHF beam antenna into the air:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.com/2011/10/theres-good-news-and-theres-bad-news.html

It's taken several more attempts, and lots of general indecision on my part but my VHF/UHF beam antenna is finally in the air and pointing skywards at 27 degrees. This is because the main purpose of this antenna is going to be the ham satellites or "birds" as they are known.

I've also moved the 6m beam to the same support to take advantage of the rotator capability being installed for the new beam.

It kind of looks OK; however I have some problems with the SWR on the 6m beam and the 2m part of the new antenna.

We had the pole propped up on the ground and the SWR adjusted on all antennas quite close; now they are up in the air the only one that is OK is the 70cm part of the dual band beam. This is a little frustrating and means that the whole damn lot has to come down again.

So the house looks even more "ridiculous" (according to my better half), the antenna doesn't work on 2m, the observant amongst you may notice that while all this was going on the pole that holds the centre of the HF wires has mysteriously grown by about 6ft... odd that.

The 6m antenna I did have working fine is now in a different location and no longer working, and the whole damn lot needs to come down again.

This means more recruitment of time from my chum Vince, G0ORC, but hey, ho... what goes around comes around. I have a project in concept for him, we are going to make a high power ATU including a digital reading SWR meter function... watch this space. Damn crazy cat didn't help much either:

Fun though, egh?