I built the W1TRC dish, and have used it successfully for many years. I compared
it side-by-side with the Radar Engineers dish, and the W1TRC dish is not as
sensitive, but still extremely useful.
IIRC, the dish came from Edmund Scientific. I painted it a dull color so that
its shiny surface couldn't accidentally cause a fire when pointed near the sun.
73,
Steve, N2IC
On 04/17/2021 04:19 PM, Charles Plunk wrote:
Good point. And that line of site quality is a good thing to narrow down the
area.
Are your referring to the W1TRC dish in the QST article? I built mine years ago
with a prefab circuit board and the dish specified in the article. I have heard
sourcing the dish is more challenging right now. If so, yes it works quite well.
In fact, if i do not hear it with the dish i really begin to question if i am at
the right pole. Yes there is a background hiss but once you hear an arc you will
not forget the sound.
My recent fix was as high as 25db over S9 due to the proximity of my doublet to
the pole. I heard it easily with the dish once i found the right pole......This
is preliminary and I have more work to do but I still have some weak arc sound
on some bands. Its so weak though I think natural noise is not allowing me to
hear it on some bands. And yes I am hearing a faint signal in the suspect area
with the dish. I need to match a noise pattern before I request they do more work.
I think though a new nut/washer and moving the ground wire will do it. I think
my issue was decades of crud on the 7200v hardware was making enough of a carbon
trace around the old hardware to arc to that ground wire stapled to the pole
next to those nut/washer.
I am enjoying such quiet noise levels now I may not even mess with it. A little
NB adjustment knocks it right out and most bands I dont hear it.
73
Chuck
AF4O
Yes, good tool, but keep in mind that it will not hear an arc on the
"other side" of
a structure. It has to be line of sight from the arc to the receiver or
at least close
to that.
RE the QST article ultrasonic pin-pointer...has anyone built it? If so,
how
sensitive was it....could you hear a very small arc at 50ft? Was the
circuit quiet...i.e. was there
any "hiss" when it wasn't detecting any signal?
73,
Charlie, N0TT
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