I’ve now had three outings with my first self-built HF antenna, an end-fed half-wave on 20m twirled around a 10m squid pole. The main reason for this design was that I’ve got easy access to the kind of salty beaches that are supposed to work well as groundplanes, but with weather being what it is right now I’ve not had much of a chance to get out.

Today could have been such a day, but instead I decided to work portable from the car, perching myself on the Druidale Road above Ballaugh. There was zero noise floor and I was able to work pretty much every station I heard at 10W, with many of them giving me better reports than I was able to give them. The Swiss guys in particular were very strong with me, sounding as clear and loud as traffic on the local repeater.

There was a strong temptation to hang on a few hours and wait for the long skip to come in, but temperatures had dropped to 4℃ as the sun went down and I didn’t relish taking everything down without gloves and a torch. Maybe next time.