On Oct 1, 2006, at 12:30 PM, Jeff wrote:
> With
> the CQWW and SS only weeks away, lets focus on that. I'd like to
> hear what
> new antennas whet up recently and how they are performing.
Hmm. SS is only a month away. I need to get busy!
Here's my plan:
1) I have a 115 foot doublet at 35 feet fed with open wire. It's been
up for several years now, but recently it has been giving me a
problem -- the SWR shifts radically when transmitting more than a few
watts.
I'm not sure what's wrong, so I have two ideas:
a) Rewind the remote balun. Theory is that there's arcing taking
place between the bifilar winding of the balun. Instead of a Guanella
design, I may shift to a W1JR design, which uses teflon coax instead
of twisted wires.
b) Replace the untuned doublet with a 80/40m trap dipole. Coaxial
traps are pretty easy to design and build. I'm already using them in
my 30/17m inverted V.
2) K2 has provision for a receive antenna. I plan a K9AY loop to be
temporarily mounted over a small tree in my yard. There have been
times when calling CQ on Phone that I have had trouble hearing the
callers. I'm hoping the loop will help out on 40m and 80m.
3) It's not really for SS, but I have enough wire to put down four
more 100 foot radials on the shunt. Need to get that down before the
ARRL 160m.
Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
-- Wilbur Wright, 1901
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