Your stations crap why can't you hear me?

When I moved to the Isle of Sheppey radio gaining my amateur radio licence wasn't on my mind I was doing some radio astronomy taking hydrogen line measurements of the milkyway so I didn't buy a property with the idea of operating a VHF/UHF station from it.

I've had a number of comments in the 2m UKAC with why can't you hear me? Your station is crap.

Well there's a couple of reasons.

1. The noise floor at this location is around -125dBm all year round and in fact in winter is can be even higher.
2. The tropology of the location.

Well number is primary worse than it was due to stacking the antennas and I still need to get someone up on the mast to understack the array for me.    

Number two however is obviously nothing I can change short of moving house and I'm not doing that.    

My QTH is around 40m above sea level and to boot I live on the side of a hill, consequently in certain directions I have a great take off and in others I might as well unplug the antenna and use a wet piece of string. 

Anyway to show the issue I've taken some tropology profiles which hopefully should show why if you live towards the East of my location I have such trouble in hearing you. 😀

North

45 Degrees

East

135 Degrees

South

225 Degrees

West

315 Degrees

You can see the take off in all directions on the HeyWhatsThat website.

Squares, squares, squares 2019

Well the squares are in for 2019 I had quite a big improvement on 2m and sadly a slightly worse on 70cm oh well hopefully the new 70cm amplifier will give an improvement.

For 2018 I managed 86 squares on 2m and for 2019 I've managed a massive improvement of 150 squares.

2m Squares 2019

On 70cm in 2018 I managed 25 squares while this year I only managed 24 which is a pity but then I still have an issue with my 70cm setup in that it's semi-permanent.

70cm Squares 2019 

Here's a link to last years squares round up.