Gardening at the new QTH

This evening I've been busy laying some additional turf in the back garden at our new (soon) QTH. About 5sq m of additional lawn was laid with about the same again to be added in the coming weeks. The bundalow is still a bit of a mess with lots of building work ongoing. The new back garden is around 70 feet wide, so an end-fed 1/4 wave for 80m should be possible. Tomorrow evening I hope to plant a new tree in the lawn to provide some screening from the neighbours.  There is a lot of gardening to do to get the place looking as we would like, but it is coming on OK.

I am still deciding what to do about amateur radio and antennas at the new QTH. I dislike large and unsightly antennas, so whatever I do it is likely to be something stealth like. Whatever, it will be a whole new set of challenges to enjoy. At least I shall have a purpose built shack in which I can both operate and build, unlike the present QTH, with a nice view down the length of the back garden.

Incidentally I bought the turf out in the fens - much cheaper than the garden centre. It did involve driving my car into the middle of a large 100 acre field to collect it though (see RHS).

New QTH work

New QTH rear garden - with the "roof tile feature"!

The work on our new (to us) QTH in Burwell is progressing steadily and if things go to plan we should be in later this summer. Today I was at the new location sorting out the garden - as much as I could - in the beautiful sunshine. There is still a great deal of builders rubbish and mess around and it will be some months before the garden can be properly worked on: for example, we have a row of roof tiles neatly stacked down the middle of the rear lawn and the front of the house has a pile or 2 of sand and bricks! The drive has a skip in it which is rapidly filling with neighbours rubbish too.

I am still thinking about ideas for antennas. At least in the new QTH I will have a dedicated shack where I can both build and operate: in 37 years at the current QTH this has not been possible. Currently I have called off the plans for VHF/UHF SSB/CW/data operation as I don't think there will be enough activity.  So, an effective, neighbour friendly stealth antenna for the higher HF bands and 6m will be the immediate priority.