Well sadly we didnt make it to ZC4 in March but plans are well underway for hopefully July and or later in the year October/November, still getting used to being a single man at my age LOL, the kids are getting older and are off doing their own things mostly now so in theory I should have plenty of time to myself to do what I want and thats the plan, originally I was planning on buying a buddihex to take to ZC4 but its looking like on top of the $700 dollar price it will be expensive to ship to the UK, I had kind of factored that in but then had not factored in the 20 percent VAT charge as well, it just makes it too expensive an option so I think its back to the drawing board, I may go with a normal Hexbeam as i could possibly get it shipped as sports equipment with me which wouldnt be quite as expensive, orignally the Buddihex was the preferred antenna purely on weight alone, just over 4kg.
Lots of stuff to think about in the next few weeks, 10m has been fabulous lately although now were coming into the summer its starting to die down a bit, we should be seeing the Sporadic E season kick in any time so fingers crossed for a good Es season on 50mhz
Still using the IC-7600 at home and the little IC-7000, im unsure what im going to take to ZC4, I took my IC-7000 last summer, im an Icom man at heart but im very tempted by the new Yaesu FT-710 which with cashback is a great price at the moment, ive seen a lot of very positive youtub videos and heard a lot of positive feedback about it, will need to make some decisions in the next week or two, Antenna wise still using my 3 El LFA for 10m and my 5 El LFA for 50mhz with no real plan to change that. to be honest you cant go wrong with the LFA’s they are proven performers, check them out, www.innovantennas.com