Greetings fellow Top Band enthusiasts!
I'm Mark K3MSB, and I live south of York PA. This is my first time posting
to this list.
I’ve been licensed for 43 years and got on 160M in November 2014, so this
is the start of my second year. Why I didn’t get on TB sooner is a
question I keep asking myself! I’ve enjoyed the challenge of 80M DXing
for years, and I find 160M to be an even more challenging band!
Last year I used an Inverted-L for TX and RX. The vertical part was 30
feet high and I used about a dozen ground radials. I was very pleased
with its performance and was delighted to be able to work stations in
Europe. This year I changed the Inverted-L; the vertical section is now
up 50 feet and I’m using about 16 ground radials.
This year I also decided to put up a separate RX antenna. I put up an EWE
oriented towards Europe. Each leg is 10 feet tall, and the length is 50
feet. The terminating resistor should be 1.2K, so I used a 2K
potentiometer set for the correct resistance. The preamp is the
P1-30/20VD from Advance Receiver Research.
After attempting to use the EWE for a few weeks, I’m convinced the EWE
doesn’t work. Obviously, since a lot of people use the EWE, the antenna
design must work, so it’s an installation or usage problem on my end
that’s the issue. I hope some of you seasoned 160M men can help me out.
I have the terminating end supported by a fiberglass mast about 2 feet from
the end of my house (vinyl siding). The transformer end is supported by a
rope to a tree, and the drop to ground on that end is vertical. The
terminating end goes to a 4 foot ground rod. The transformer end goes to
a 2 foot ground rod (septic line concerns prevent me from going deeper).
When I turn on the preamp, the noise level rises to the same level as that
heard with my Inverted-L. Stations in Europe are sometimes at the same
signal level, but a lot of times much lower, so that I can hear them better
on the Inverted-L and not on the EWE. Stations off the back of the EWE
sometimes are attenuated, but not all the time.
I tried adjusting the potentiometer, and that has no effect at all. I did
this by running a long patch cable from the headphones jack on the
transceiver to the area of the terminating resistor. I tuned in a
moderately strong station (off the back of the EWE) whose signal level was
fairly constant, and adjusted the pot while listening to the audio. No
change at all. Granted, the ear is not the best way to do this.
I have a noise issue here, and I think it’s man-made, but from reports of
160M hams in the area, I’m not sure it’s local. The bandscope on the
radio shows a ragged saw tooth waveform . When I switch from the
Inverted-L to the EWE, the ragged waveform goes away, but I do not see a
decrease in background noise as I expected.
My expectation of the EWE is that both signal and noise would go down
(relative to the Inverted-L), but the preamp would boost the signal higher
relative to the noise (although the signal level itself on the EWE would be
less than the Inverted-L). As mentioned above, the noise level is
unchanged, and the signal is much more difficult to copy with the EWE.
It was suggested that I connect the two ground rods with a wire. I did
this and it had no effect.
So, I’m open to any and all suggestions.
73 Mark K3MSB
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