In the shack (part of the Webfactor office) the equipment consists of a Yaesu FT2000D (new in August 2009) along with the matching DMU and speaker, a Heil headset and an elderly Heathkit SB220. There is also an Ameritron Watt Meter and an MFJ 989D antenna tuner. Normally I use a Heil HM10 boom mic switched to the HC5 cartridge.

ZL4KF station 2nd July 2011

We have only recently moved to this QTH at Waikouaiti, on the coast and about 25 minutes drive north of Dunedin and I have erected a simple vertical antenna. This consists of a 9.2m (30 foot aprox) fibreglass pole with an 8.2m (27 foot) and a 6.1m (20 foot) wire taped to the side. This is fed directly with buried coax and a toroidal choke and tuned from the shack with the MFJ 989D. Presently there are about 12 #16 copper wire radials of various lengths buried about 100mm (4 inches) deep. Some of these radials are connected to a wire fence on one side and a galvanised steel fence on the other. The antenna is not ideal but I have quite a small area for antennas and this is about as big as I can go. Some might argue against feeding the antenna directly with co-ax but the losses due to the high SWR are quite minimal in reality (maybe 1db or 1.5db) and the convenience factor has prevailed. The extra 6.1m wire was added to give a dip in SWR on 20 meters as there were some issues when running higher power. It tunes up easily from 3.5 - 14 MHz so covers the bands I'm currently interesed in. We are quite close to the beach and the area is not built up - sea on one side and a lagoon on the other so takeoff should be good most directions so hopefully you'll hear me!

Simple vertical antenna