Planned to meet a friend on the edge of the Brecons Beacons today so after that I also headed to see Mark, the owner of Sandpiper Aeriels at his work unit in Aberdare. it has to be said, Mark is one of the most helpful local suppliers I have ever had the pleasure to do business with – and is able to supply a range of amateur radio hardware from connectors and cables, to masts and antennas – and will do everything he can to help sort whatever you need. If you ever need ‘stuff’ for your amateur radio projects, Mark is your man!
I have been enquiring recently about one of his excellent range of hand made antennas – a clip-on dipole for 2M/70cm that I want to be able to take with me and use when out on my motorcycle. A quick call and Mark advised it would be built and ready for collection by around 11:00 the very same day – now… one simply can’t say fairer than that, eh! Great service indeed.
Previously I’ve purchased mag mounts, several whip antennas for working mobile HF as well as plenty of other bits and bobs, but when visiting Mark at his his unit it is always a good idea to stock up with connectors from the huge range he always has available to hand.
So, arriving spot on 11:00 I picked up my new dipole, 15′ patch cable and an SMA/SO239 connector for the Yaesu FT-70D fully intending to head across to the one of the Eastern valleys closer to home to test it out. Alas despite last weekend being close to 20˚C, the Welsh weather today was closer to 10˚C and indeed got the better of me. I did stop off at one of my favourite spots pretty high up just on the other side of a location called Keepers Pond, but the wind had since become pretty darned gnarly, and once I had parked in the lay-by and my hands were out of leather gloves and off my heated grips – it was also bitingly cold too, so I decided to try it on another day – which will hopefully be very soon.
I will pop a blog post with an update on how it performs compared to the supplied rubber duck and my home brew SlimJim (see other blog posts about thats performance) and if anyone wants to speak with Mark about cables, antennas, connectors, towers in fact any bots and bobs or odds and sods – his www site is here. Give him a call.
Here’s the dipole antenna in its packaging, which fits neatly in my rear motorcycle back-box and so will be an easy to carry item for when I am out and about.
As I was already pretty close to the site of the awful Aberfan disaster of 1966, where 170,000 cubic metres of NCB slurry waste slid down a hillside directly into Pantglas Primary School, killing 116 children and over 40 adults, Decided to pay a visit, and my respects. Blog post covering this little trip will be posted in time.
If you have managed to get this far and have not fallen asleep, many thanks!
Enjoy reading folks!