Wet Noodle Sets Europe on Fire
Quote:
Originally Posted by
koØm
Three months later, I'm still having Antenna problems.
Age and ice from a winter storm brought the horizontal leg (#20 Teflon coated silver) so, I replaced it with a run of #15 coated magnet wire. The "smoke" was gone again. I could only get a decent match at 10.130 MHz and and the 40 meter band.
I'm using a MFJ-259 analyzer (the first edition - SWR and impedance only) looking at the radio input trying to ballpark the band setting for the tuner but, i'm not having any luck tuning the upper ham bands. I went back to a new run of #20 teflon wire but still cannot tune the upper bands, I think that I have a problem with the leg that runs up vertical and goes across the roof, That's the part I cannot get to without building maintenance unlocking access to the roof. It possible that the foamvar insulation may have rubbed off at the edge of the roof. I gotta come up with a bribe.....
ch
I have thought about cutting the vertical leg and running that side horizontal around the building and securing it with a dogbone insulator.
I lucked up the first time and, I cut my antenna to the proper length for the " 'Lectric-wave" but these next few times, not so lucky.
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I don't want to bore you with the mundane ramblings of building at a "Die-Pole - Dip-hole" antenna but, in this case perseverance paid off.
Every other day or so, I would trim a couple of inches off the leg that I had access to. I would then test the antenna with the MFJ-259 and the SWR meter in the radio; this cycle happened for about 2 weeks.
A couple of days ago, I hit the spot; I was able to tune 29.640 HMz to a flat match for the radio, next I checked down to 27 MHz and, it's still within range of the tuner. With fingers crossed, I dropped down to 15 meters (if I could get a stable and decent match there, I knew that the antenna setup would work the rest of the bands), had a 1.3 to 1 match there.
20, 40, 60, 75-80 meters all fell in place with the Dentron Super Tuner, cannot tune 12 meters and I lost 17 meters but I can live without them.
I got on 60 meters running WSPR at 2 watts and the signal was copied across the Atlantic and into Argentina down south. Next, I cranked up the watts and made a couple of calls on JT-65 and I got some nice comebacks. The PSK-Reporter showed my signal covering Europe like a blanket; there were also receive reports from Alaska, the west coast and, the heartlands and fly-over states.
Random lengths of wire in a "V" shape in the horizontal plane 30 feet up in the air with a single radial to earth ground makes 4000 mile hook-ups; 40 plus years in and, I am still amazed.
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