I know, the Island is addictive
I'm running an OCF (Fritzel FD- 4) with coil and 30 feet of extra wire from 160 to 10 meters.
For 15/12/10 an rebuild old Imax 2000 vertical on the roof.
But, since my activities on 160 picked up in the winters, and my abstention from the Zed offered hours to fill, the weather was sunny and fine, i decided it was time for something new.
A real vertical for 160 was out of the question, the lot i live on is just 100 x 25 feet...
Sitting here, frustrated, was of no help, so back to the idea books, ARRL RSGB antenna books, and Karl Rothammel.
Using my H.T in the workroom, ( transceivers are at ground level in the living room) to keep contact on the local repeaters my eye fell on the nifty rubber ducky......
A 10 watt bulb went on ( i,m a known dimwit) and an idea was born.
In the last years i "planted" lotsa copper wire in the garden in the front and back of the house, added a star configuration of 5 copper rods 10 feet long for the earth for the station, a 6 feet long wire connects that to my ground rail on wich the components, transceivers tuner, SB-1000 etc are grounded, and the earth for the house is also connected to that.
In the DIY store i got a PVC rainwater pipe, 1 3/4 inch in size, 20 feet long.
In the shed was a piece of surplus wood, 8 feet long, wich fitted nicely in that PVC pipe.
Add 50 meters, or 170 feet of copper wire, wich was wound on the pole, spaced about 1 inch apart.
I had 3 ring cores here, 4C65 iron core, Mu 125.
Use super glue, stack them, and make a 1:9 balun out of it.
Add together, we have a vertical that works from 160 up to 10 meters, and maybe more.
SWR is quite low, the tuner had no problem making a match ( MFJ 993-B)
To test if i didn't make a dummy load, i tested it with the gang on 160 meters, comparing it with the FD-4 at 45 feet above ground ( young sea clay)
Result, 8 dB less signal as the FD-4, receive was reciproke.
The vertical had LOTS less static/noise in reception, where i could not hear the other station with the OCF, the vertical pulled them in no problem, 1 to 3 S points less stronger as the OCF but with much less static and noise.
Making it possible to hear a station on the vertical, that was completely covered in the noise on the OCF.
This was the case on 160/80/40.
Even on 20 the noise was less, but here the OCF remained top antenna for reception, being 1/2 wave above ground here.
Worked a few countries on several bands, running 100 to 500 Watts into that vertical.
The balun went up 5 to 10 degrees Celsius with 500 watt input depending on the band/SWR. nothing to be worried about.
Results, sometimes almost same S points in the reports back, sometimes 1 to 2 S points less, depending on the antenna/polarization of the other station.
This is just preliminary, further tests over a longer time are needed.
The balun is connected to the ground system at the feed point, the ferrite clamps were left over and used "just in case"
Cost:
8 Euro, PVC drainpipe.
15 Euro for the 3 4C65 iron core ferrite ring cores.
A grab in the junk box.
Result:
working antenna
Tons of fun.
Lotsa surprised peeps that though " it won't work" but it does....
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