The Smoke, Part Three

[koØm]

After cleaning the room, installing the new desk, replacing all equipment and then finding that I have Gremlins / Grounding problems, I chased them down and eliminated them.

I re-calibrated my listings for the tuner positions per band and, I noticed that I had a listing for 160 meters; I tuned close to the old settings and, touched them up from there and noted them as my new tuning spots.

Let me quickly tell you about my antenna; about 30' of Teflon coat#12 come out horizontally and is terminated with a dogbone insulator to my metal porch rail. The other leg is a piece of #15 coated magnet wire of random length (40' plus) that goes vertical up and across the roof of the room where the radio is located. This antenna is fed by a short piece of 300 ohm (flat) TV antenna wire. The antenna is tuned by the Dentron Super Tuner Plus.

I have used this antenna on 80 meters but never lower than that until this point; while thinking to myself, "You don't have enough length in that antenna to use it on 160 meters", I watched the waterfall and saw some activity in the JT9 portion of the band. I called the fellow but, his reply was "SRI No Decode". I put some more fire in the wire and adjusted the audio signal a tad and, he came right back, we confirmed our contact and 73'ed each other.

I'm sure that this is NVIS radiation but, it's my first contact on the 160 meter band with pieced-together antenna system.

.

[kb2vxa]

Not bad, not bad at all. I knew a ham now SK who solved the problem of putting a 160M antenna in his postage stamp back yard by giving his pet copper spider some LSD and it worked very well. It only goes to show if you don't have the real estate just make it real and you have the estate.

[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.....

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.

.

[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.

.

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.

.

[WØTKX]

Yay! :wiggle:

[w0aew]

That's nothing. The WIK once used only a milliwatt to work DXCC EME on 80m WSPR!

[K7SGJ]

That's nothing. The WIK once used only a milliwatt to work DXCC EME on 80m WSPR!

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