Antenna news and this weekends DX

Firstly this weekend’s DX contacts, Kuwait, Australia, Kazakhstan, Morocco and the Virgin isl on Saturday, and today- Thailand, Sweden, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, India, Turkey, Egypt, Guadeloupe, Venezuela and St Helena isl. The last three all within 30 minutes of each other and actually pileup busters! I think my TGM and 100 watts is doing well when the conditions are just right which is surprising as it’s not been that good this weekend as a whole, and the CQCW contest didn’t help much. St Helena is a new country for me, but they’re mostly all new with my M0JKL call. Have worked 101 DXCC countries now.

I had an email back today from VK3APG, Paul in answer to my Hex vs. A3s. I hope he won’t mind if I post his reply here, it might be helpful for others. Thanks Paul for your reply.

“well its been almost a year now with about 6 month both antennas up, all i can say is the hex beam wins out.
more bands, good signals for same height as the A3S..in summary the only thing missing is a bit of FB ratio.

the antenna itself has stood up to some decent winds, so its sturdy..i have not got nervous yet, and as in the photo (now its on top of my lattice tower – 12m in the air) it was on a 9m push up mast with no issues in 60 km/h winds.

I can’t recommend it enough on the basis, 6 bands and good to excellent signals..I have yet to have missed a contact that I have heard, admittedly I run an SPE 1K-fa but at the 500 watt level.

well there’s my 20 cents worth..it was worth the switch”

So, has that helped me make up my mind?……………..not yet! I get the feeling whatever I decide I’ll probably wonder if I made the right choice, but I guess I’d be happy with either.

The other news is that the neighbour has sent the tree man in to look at the offending branches. Hopefully that means it will happen sooner rather than later.