7Q7MM - Equipment Used

Kenwood were our main sponsor and provided a TS-480HX transceiver. This new HF / 6m transceiver weighs just 3.7 kg yet has a big 200 W output, making it absolutely ideal for DXpeditioning! To read more about the Kenwood TS-480HX, click here.

There is also a 100 W version of the TS-480 with a built-in ATU, the TS-480SAT. To read more about it, click here.

The heaviest piece of equipment we took was Rich's Acom 1000 amplifier. Our second amplifier, Steve's Loudenboomer, was so light that we took it on the plane as hand luggage.

On 40m, we had a 2-element phased vertical array. On 80 & 160m we had a vertical that was changed, on a daily basis, from an inverted-L on 160m to a quarter wave vertical on 80m.

For LF reception we had a 160m long Beverage that was was run out along a pier into the lake which conveniently ran due North. The far end was terminated in the water. This Beverage proved essential for 160 & 80m reception, as no signals could be heard on the vertical due to the high noise floor in the tropics.

Antennas
10 15 & 20m - Cushcraft A3S 3-ele beam
10m - 2-ele yagi
12, 17 & 30m - Monoband verticals each with a single elevated radial
40m - 2-ele phased vertical array
80m - Full-size quarter wave vertical
160m - Full-size quarter wave inverted-L
LF Rx - 160m Beverage

Station block diagram