YOTA Bulgaria Day 6

What did you get up to on Day 6?

In the morning we split into groups then built and tuned VHF end-fed dipoles for use with HTs. After lunch we built 20m HF dipoles with simple choke baluns and then operated the station LZ19YOTA. This was interesting as many of us had never built an HF antenna before. Then, after dinner, we had the closing party which was great fun and we even had a (rather good) magician come in for entertainment.

What was your favourite bit?

My favourite bit was operating LZ19YOTA as it was my first time with a pileup (as my home station is only 100W). It was interesting to work a station with a spider beam at 1KW!

What did you learn that you didn’t know originally?

I learned how baluns are designed through the use of polar plots on a VNA thanks to the 3GHz VNA loaned to us by Rohde & Schwarz. This was interesting as many amateurs do not see how baluns themselves are designed and simply follow the instructions for pre-made designs.

What are you looking forward to next?

Unfortunately this is the last day of YOTA so there aren’t any activities left, but I am looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed!

Jake Howarth, M0JKE

Category: YOTA 2019