Well, good news and bad news. Let’s see.

The good news are that I found out the problem with the antenna. It was the dipole adapter, like the one on the picture to the right, that caused all the issues for reasons yet unknown. Once I replaced the adapter with a chassi-mount SO-239 the problems were history.

I suppose it took some serious beating while operating from OJ0.

Anyway, the bad news are that I had to leave early and couldn’t take part in the RSGB IOTA contest. The weather forecast was bad, and since this was a family vacation, I was the weakest link and had to obey to the majority.

The vertical I used was based on a 5 meter telescopic fibreglass pole, originally part of a bird deterrent kit. Two elevated radials were used, and the SWR plummeted down to less than 1.1 and the radio was super happy working lots of contacts, digital and CW.

Here’s the setup; nothing special nor worth mentioning, just added to spice the post up with a couple of pictures. Notice the cows and electric fences, it’s like you can hear the clicking on the radio.

Now, cue The Orb – Little Fluffy Clouds.

If anyone reading this worked me from JP66 and need their QSO for IOTA EU-062 confirmed, let me know. Might have accidentally logged it as JP53 no IOTA.