A quiet evening listening to the radio .... suddenly enters my little Julia, telling me: "Dad, do you hear the Martians.... I would like to hear the martians... me and Martina, yes?" - "Sure little Giula,  but you should wear headphones so you can hear them better ...!" After ten long minutes of listening to 20 meters, "Dad, Martina is very happy now, figured out how to speak the Martians!""Ok Julia, you want me to try to talk to them?" - " Yes dad, please. ". I call on 20 meters and find a gentle Tuscan operator, I explain the family situation, he laughs and tells me that he has children, not worry about the "QRM family"!
 Julia tells me that she is happy that the Martians speak Italian .... thought to be more difficult ....! Martina then she started to "beat" with the vertical keyer , and between a "sound of CW" and that the Martians who spoke we have endedd  the evening.

Of course the day after Giulia asked me to talk to the  inhabitants of the moon,  they are  much closer to us......!

Yesterday evening, I have had great satisfaction with the new antenna hexbeam. I talked to Saint Lucia Island, the United States and Japan in 15, 17 and 20 meters. Then I went up to 10 meters and.... Central America listened well with good signals. I'm having fun with the same desire to make radio as ten years ago. Then I made a QSO with Kuwait and with a colleague on a flight to India on 15 meters. This antenna is giving me a lot of satisfaction, paying me for the effort made to install the trellis and all changes made to the mechanical.
Good day to all and good DX!

Spring in Cadore, Dolomites

This is the view from my terrace in a beautiful sunny day. Do not miss anything! When I get up in the morning I hear the birds chirping, squirrels arguing in the treetops, near the creek with flowing water. Even today will be a beautiful day, I think to myself. Two hundred meters from my house there are beautiful deer and fallow deer, a few days will begin to warm and the mushroom season. Good day to all!

Finally .... ! Saturday and Sunday, thanks to my friend Ettore IZ3ZVO and to the  final shot of Enrico IK3HHV, we were able to install the Hexbeam of SP7IDX (http://sp7idx-hexbeam.eu). I posted some photos of the result, I must say very charming.

Picture from the ground

Two days incredibly stressful, with thunderstorms and lightning, so we climbed on the roof "part-time" and only on Sunday afternoon we finished at 17.00, just 5 minutes before to come down the last lightening .... the first tests, the antenna has a low noise to a good gain when compared with the vertical GAP, in fact with only 100W in full pile-up I reached the Cameroon with a real SR of 5/9 with QRM. In the evening I did just listening, always taking as reference the Gap Titan, I'm really happy with this new antenna.

The antenna is mounted about 8 meters from the roof and 20 meters above the ground, the next evening, after work and after playing with my girls, I hope that the propagation is at a good level so as to do some tests.

The only problem we had was in the assembly, the antenna is sold as a "plug & play", has no reference measurements, and we had a bit of difficulty because the first barrel of fiberglass did not have the correct measurements, we have repeated the distances between the loop and at the end, with the drafting of the wire loop .... we had to change everything. I need to send an email to Waldi to report this problem, when you are on top of a roof, , very tight, it is not easy to do stunts!!
In any case, the antenna is very well built, has a dress very professional and the explanations are very clear, I have to congratulate for the excellent workmanship, Waldi.

From the roof, impressive!

Rainbow of hope (of sun)

Just before the last efforts....                                                                      

Last thing, I was amazed by the values ​​of SWR, a slight peak on average 1.1 to 1.4 on 15 meters and the thing I liked most ... from 49 to 51 ohms impedance with total J practically zero!

So thanks to everyone, now I will keep you informed of the evidence on the amateur bands and the DX that I can do.

Hello, George

After a long, long winter with feet of snow, finally the Dolomites have some sun and this will allow me to install the antenna on the roof of the house HEXBEAM produced by SP9IDX, Waldi, customized to suit my needs. I am very curious to verify the performance of this antenna, my current set-up includes an antenna vertical GAP TITAN DX and a vertical bands 40/80/160 meters by IT9ZMX. The GAP TITAN works fine but I was curious to try this particular antenna, especially for directional antenna characteristics, of low noise so high S / N ratio. My philosophy is the continuous search for new solutions, especially low noise this antenna seems to meet my expectations. The HexBeam has always intrigued me but I was very doubtful about the mechanical seal and life expectations , after the appropriate checks and feedback from other fellow amateur radio operators, particularly those who live in climates similar to mine, I decided to buy it. Probably I will install the Hexbeam Saturday the 8th June with my friend Ettore IZ3ZVO, new entry in the world of amateur radio. We have already brought a trellis on the roof of 7 meters of total lencht, with base and mast of about 1.5 meters, then the antenna will be installed at about 9 meters from the roof and about 18 meters above the ground, considering the tall of my home .
One must consider that I live in the mountains in the Eastern Dolomites, at an altitude of about 1000 meters above sea level with large natural obstacles such as mountains of 2500-3200 meters covering the visual, but compared to other colleagues who live in the same area, I am lucky because about 160 degrees of the horizont are free so I can point the beam antenna and attempt for long path QSO. Also I have to say that in spite of what I thought using simulation programs, many times I get reports R / S above my expectations. So I think the trial is always better than a simulation program, as may be more accurate. In fact, the propagation conditions, the conductivity of the soil and a little skill factors are certainly important and influential in the success of a QSO.