After more than two years of service, un little checkup of Big Wheel antenna was required to see if everything is OK.

I am happy to see it working properly as if started for the first time. This is good to see when I am remembering its state before repair work, this antenna is going to work for a long time.

The antenna is not perfectly tuned on the TX frequency, and it has never been. It is complicated to tune because all is soldered and coated, this is the price to pay for robustness.

73’s

Jean-Michel

The beacon will shutdown thuesday 28 for maintenance operation :

• add a cooling fan
• check the correct behavior of the antenna

Duration : 3 hours

Great news, beacon moving is complete, yesterday I received a mail from our local authorithy (ANFR) that confirms the definitive callsign F1ZAW.

Beacon CW message has been updated accordingly and beacon is using its own callsign now.

73

Jean-Michel F4CQG