This time, I made sure to clean my setup with less wires and a more logical layout of the equipment.
On 2024/08/03, Ed (K9QW) stopped by with a NanoVNA to test my antenna. As it turns out, I was using a 1:64 balun with a length of wire meant for a 1:49. The next morning, I opened the balun and rewound it to be a 1:49. This dropped the SWR on 40m from >5 to <1.3 on the EFHW antenna. I chose to do this instead of lengthening the wire in order to keep the EFHW more compact, as it is already ~67ft long.
On 2024/08/04, I set up my equipment again to test the antenna. I noticed a significant improvement in signal reports from contacts on 40m and 20m FT8. I will be using this configuration from now on. That afternoon, I made 15 new contacts on FT8.
I now feel ready for the POTA activation coming up at US-1024 on 2024/08/10. WJ9UNK is expecting to operate both FT8 and SSB, all QRP, with 3 operators.
