Dale L. Martin wrote:
>
> Today, I arrived home about 6:00pm to find the Hy-Gain 12AVQ I
> ordered last week sitting on the front porch.
>
> After changing clothes, reading the mail, opening the box,
> checking parts (all there, plus a couple of washers), collecting
> tools, and start assembling the antenna, it's 7:00pm.
>
> By 7:30pm, I've mounted the antenna, sunk a ground rod, attached
> said ground rod to the antenna, and am sitting in the grass in
> the backyard checking SWR with my MFJ-259.
>
> A bit high on each band...about 1.5-1.6:1. Get the step ladder
> and make a two adjustments.
>
> Scrounge around a bit for enough coax pieces to reach the garage
> antenna patch panel.
>
> At 7:40pm, I'm sitting in my radio room at the Omni VI+ checking
> SWR on the three bands. 1.3:1 or less across the CW portion of
> each band. 1.8:1 or less across the three ham bands (CW and
> SSB).
>
> Now, should I put out radials?
>
> Dale Martin, KG5U
> kg5u@hal-pc.org
> http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u
>
Well that depends if you want to lower your take-off angle of radiation.
Right now without any radials, your signal is going nearly straight up.
This is good for local qso's but if your after the dx, then by all means
put as many as you can out there. Swr is not an indicator of the
performance
of that vertical. On the contrary, the more radials you put out, the
narrower
your bandwidth will become and you will see steeper skirts on the swr
meter.
I always like to see that cause I know I have done some good in lowering
my take off angle. If you just want to ragchew around the U.S. on those
bands then I would probably not put any out. 73 and good luck
------------------------------------------
Steve Narducci
Amateur Radio Station - W9SN
All Ten Tec Equiptment
Toys for "Real" CW Men
------------------------------------------
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