I purchased a Veritium HFClock as an impulse buy when I saw it on sale in an email from Gigaparts. I tried to build a HamClock using a Raspberry Pi and 7″ touchscreen, but I could never quite get it to work correctly. The Veritium HFClock is far more expensive, but it has a 9″ touchscreen in an attractive hardwood frame, and was easy to configure right out of the box. It’s definitely an attractive and informative station accessory. I may try again to build a HFClock with a Raspberry Pi someday.
This afternoon I installed a new antenna for 10 meters. The antenna is a HF-28 Rectangle from PAR Electronics. It’s light (2.5 lbs.) and compact (approximately 8′ X 4′). It was very easy to build and took me about a half hour following the included instructions. I have the antenna mounted on a Max-Gain Systems MK-6 fiberglass push-up mast. The SWR was near perfect right away, but there are instructions included to tune the antenna if necessary. According to the manufacturer, the antenna is not perfectly omni-directional, but it has a pattern that does not require a rotator.
The antenna seems to work very well. The conditions on 10 meters were not great today, but right away I was able to work several FT8 stations on the west coast and in South America. I can’t wait to see how it performs in good band conditions. Hopefully this antenna will help me finally work Alaska on 10 meters to finally complete a 5BWAS and get closer 10 DXCC for 10 meters!
The antenna is mounted on the mast I had previously used for a 6 meter Ringo vertical, which you can see leaning up against the fence.I still need to do some work on the guy ropes, but the antenna and mast are very sturdy.I only need 9 more countries for DXCC on 10 meters!