5B/G3SZU

Email: <my UK G call-sign> at <my UK G call-sign>.co.uk

QSL POLICY:   If I receive a card or a request for a card, I will QSL. All my cards are held by my QSL manager, Charles M0OXO and all requests should go to him at his QRZ.COM address. Charles also has an OQRS system on his web-site at M0OXO.COM.

We made regular trips to Paphos, Cyprus from 2004 to 2009 and as usual I took the IC-7000 and the roach pole….but also a loop tuner….

In 2005, our daughter was living and working in Cyprus and we asked her to go and have a look at the hotel we were thinking of staying at. We asked her to get us a nice, high room…….as you can see from the picture below, it certainly wasn’t high and it certainly wasn’t particularly nice.

It’s the usual arrangement of the IC-7000 and this time, a horizontal roach pole with around 30 odd feet of wire acting as a counterpoise, laid on the floor of the apartment. Made contacts around EU and the US.

Still in 2005 - You can just about see the roach pole sticking out…..not the best of antenna arrangements, but it gave me contacts.

With having the counterpoise in the apartment, there was RF floating around but the hotel had a digital TV system that wasn’t affected by it. The IC-7000 tolerated it. One has to do one’s best in the circumstances!

It’s important not to make the counterpoise too short otherwise the floating RF becomes too much to handle - you get RF on the coax braid. You can use a choke at the TX end and use the coax as a counterpoise, but it obviously still introduces RF in the shack. Even with a separate counterpoise, the coax will still behave in this way unless you have choked off the coax at the antenna end.

2005 - This is my usual arrangement but on the right hand side of the desk is a homebrew, passive touch keyer ie. There is the static “paddle” which feeds into  CMOS circuitry and then into the TX. It worked by hand capacitance but the problem was that being Cyprus and therefore hot, one’s fingers tended to get a bit moist which affected operation.

In later years, I acquired an electronic touch-keyer which operated on a different principle. It was light and easy to transport but was a bit haphazard in its character consistency. I still have it but prefer to use my Bencher key to save my CW reputation.

This is my 2009 antenna arrangement. I’m using a MFJ-936B Loop tuner. We actually made arrangements to go over to Cyprus at short notice and I knew I was going to have a problem with the antenna at this particular hotel, so I bought this loop tuner - which I still have.

I have to say it’s a little beauty and well made. It will tune a variety of wire lengths for 80m - 10m. This got me on the air for this particular trip and was amazingly successful from the 4th floor, with contacts as far afield as the US. Conditions that year weren’t particularly good as I recall, but still managed to fill the log.

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