Motorhoming and Amateur Radio

It's been a while since I last posted anything on here!  We have been so busy with our motorhome, I don't seem to have found the time for anything else.

One of the great things about motorhoming is that most of the time you are at sites with very little RF noise.  Such a change from being at home where my noise floor on 40m sits around S6-7!  As I like to ragchew on 40m SSB, this can make things pretty difficult, so portable working is great for me.

I take the Mission RGO ONE with me in Matilda (our motorhome) and that works happily on 50W into one of three aerials.

The aerial I use depends on where I am sited.  Where possible I use the Sotabeams Bandhopper 3,  This is a linked dipole and I support it using Sotabeams Tactical Mini mast.  I can have this freestanding using guys or usually, I strap it to a mirror or the handle at the habitation door.

If I don't have enough room to get a dipole out as I only have room to one side, I use an end fed half wave.  I got this from radio-stuff.com and it is lightweight and very portable.  This aerial has the advantage of being able to run on 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m without a tuner.  I usually mount it on the mast with the feedpoint at about 5ft and throw the other end into a handy tree, although it still works well with the end low.  I use a 10m length or RG-174 as feeder and at the radio end I have wound a choke to limit any common mode currents from getting back to the rig.  In practice, I have found no difference between this and the dipole.

Of course, sometimes I cannot get a wire out at all and then I use the JPC-12.  This is a simple screw together, centre loaded vertical with a counterpoise and will tune from 40m to 10m without issues.

I carry all of this in stacking boxes from the 'Really Useful' company.  This keeps it all neat and has little weight.

As you can see from the image above, I like to log on a computer.  I use the superb Station Master logging system.  This allows me to log from just about any device with cloud storage for my logs.  It has all the features I need and I carry my MacBook Air with me for this.

I hope to work your as G0VGS/P from Matilda while we are out and about.