SImplex Testing of the 2m Moxon

Setup the 2m Moxon on a painters pole late afternoon yesterday and checked into the local daily ragchewers net. Was able to hear the repeater traffic in Brownsville, Harlingen and La Feria at full quieting. South Padre Island was readable but scratchy. Could not hear the Edinburg or Raymonsville repeaters at all. W3OQ in Olimto helped me do some testing. I was able to work the La Feria repeater with no problems with full quieting reported on the local repeater node.

On simplex I heard stations from Mcallen/Mission and Weslaco for the first time. The Weslaco station could hear me only once. Stations in the upper valley were fading in and out but could not hear me. W3OE was reporting hearing stations near Corpus Christi and received a text message that he had been hear near Refugio.

So to summarize, the 2m Moxon does show an improvement as predicted by EZNEC. At 5W this is not enough to be heard widely through region on simplex but does give me access to a number of other local repeaters. Note that many of the simplex stations I was trying to work are on 50W and have antennas mounted up around 40ft.