CMC TEST: ANTENNA SITE

 

MY QTH is located on the side of a mountain in the beautiful "Spessart" area of northern Bavaria.

"Spessart" is a range of low wooden mountains, and I live on the side of one of these mountains.

 

MY XYL chose this QTH.  While living in Oklahoma in 2011, my XYL returned to Germany shortly before me to begin house hunting.  I found this QTH on the Internet and sent her to look at it.  She said "honey it's beautiful" and after obtaining permession to errect an antenna, we rented the house. 

 

THE MOUNTAINS were not visible to me as I was viewing this QTH in GoogleMaps, and I did not think to check that out.  It looked great, sounded great, so we took rented it.

 

THE SHOCK:  Two weeks later when I returned to Germany and arrived here in Schaippach, I got my first glimpse of the mountains.  Although they are not very high, our place is located on a very steep slope which limits my ability to guy a tower or mast.  Thus I have no tower or high/heavy mast.  The two masts I am using are very lightweight fiberglass telescoping masts, made by Spiderbeam.

 

FOREST GUMP's  mom always said, "we just have to play the hand the good Lord dealt us."

 

ABOUT THE TEST SITE:

The test site itself is located about 20m (66 ft.) north of the house, with the beginning height at about the same level as the roof of the house.  At least the house is not disturbing the test antenna as much as it would if both were located at the same level.

 

The trees you see in the picture just east of the test site have been chopped down and removed.  Unfortunately that land is not part of our yard and I am no permitted to use it.

 

The trees pictured to the west of the site are on our land but it is very difficult to even walk back in there, do the the jungle-like terrain which is on about a 40 degree slope.  As a result, I really only have room for testing antennas for 40m and higher.

 

 THE SHACK

We call this our "Summer House" (hi).

It's not really a house but there is a single room downstairs with a refrigerator and even a small bathroom with toilet and shower.

 

Upstairs is completely open, except for the back which is enclosed and has huge windows.  It has several picnic tables and is great for operating from in the summer.

 

For the purpose of running the "Worst Case" CMC tests, the coax of the test antenna is strung to a point near the top center of the summer house, thus positioning it at the same height and parallel to one leg of the antenna - but of course at a 45 degree angle to the antenna.  

THIS ASSURES LOTS OF CMC!

Note:  Operating Position #2 was set up just inside the door, downstairs.  The coax was strung through the air and fastened near the top of the building, which resulted in it being nearly in parallel with one leg of the antenna.  You will see this in one of the puctures below.


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