TopBand: Wires out the window in HK

[VR97BrettGraham]

It's VR2AX who works 160 with a wire out the window.  I don't know if he's
been active this season or not, but he was on last year.

VS6UO was the guy who put the Wire Out The Window aerial on the map, from
the south side of the Island, but that was on 40.

While not exactly out the window, VS6WO used to drop a half-wave wire from
the roof of his block of flats to the other side of the road below for
contests.  I think K4VX worked 43 countries in the '92 CQ WW CW on 160 with
that antenna - but it's having to listen with it from an urban location
that's really impressive.  Renovation of the building has prevented
deployment of the antenna in recent times.

I don't think VS6DO worked 160 much from anywhere other than the Broadcast
Drive QTH.  While his inverted vee from a 10m tilt-over mast (his other
homebrewing talent) atop the staircase roof got the apex up an incredible
distance in HK terms, it still wasn't much in wavelengths & the antenna no
doubt "saw" a bit of the building - scratch some of the eight floor
advantage.  The ends were tied off to adjacent buildings.

As for power, a 9 dBw power limit applied to 160 & 80m (15 dBw PEP for 80m
SSB) until the early '90s I think it was.  One day, Radio Television
Hongkong complained of RFI on its in-house monitoring system from Paul's
transmissions & the Post Office came out to investigate.  During tests,
they insisted he stoke up how many of whatever tubes he was using at the
time as far as they'd go.  Result: RTHK got chewed out for using unshielded
wiring.

I hope there's enough relevance in that to post this.  If not, sorry.
Working 160 here is a bit different & I figured it wouldn't hurt for you
lot to know.

73, VR97BrettGraham



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