Well the rain has stopped and the wind has dried the roof and the swr on
my dipoles are now 1:1. Just like I originally tuned them. Maybe the
roof is not a sponge but definitely affecting the swr of those antennas
when it is wet. I read something about that in one of the antenna books
I have.
and the propagation gods were not very friendly tonight.
73
Thom KI8W
On 12/2/2016 02:46, Thom wrote:
So I have had some issues over the past several weeks that has
prevented me from entering the weekly NCCC RTTY Sprints. Tonight, all
was well with my station until I discovered something I find interesting.
I heard no signals on 20, 40 and 80 meters.
It was then that I heard the rain making a lot of racket on the metal
roof I have on the place where I live.
Took a look at the SWR of my carefully tuned dipoles which normally
exhibit something very close to a 1:1 SWR.
My SWR readings are near 8:1 right now and that roof is acting like a
great big RF sponge for incoming/outgoing signals.
Not much I can do about it...I just find it interesting.
my score in the Sprint was ZERO.
I hope it does not rain this weekend.
Finally, I think the reason I did not discover it earlier is normally
when it rains, I am scrambling to disconnect a lot of antennas. I
have had lightning strikes before.
--
73
Thom KI8W
"Living deep in the black hole of RF"
_______________________________________________
RTTY mailing list
RTTY@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty
|