[3830] N0AH 160 CQWW CW Score

[Dinsterdog@aol.com]

SOHP Unassisted

Operating time 12.2 hours (Had hand surgery last Tuesday- wimped out early)

Exchange: N0AH 5NN WY

SCORE
Q            C           S
450         9            52  = 63,440

Equipment: CT9, IC 756, Inverted L es 4 Bevg's for listening, AL-811 Amp

DXCC countries worked:  8P; KL; KH6; V4; ZF; VP2E; KP2; JA; XE
State sections missed:  AL; ME; RI for state sweep

Friday night stunk- lots of QRN, turned in at 11 p.m.....wife looked at me as
if I was manically depressed- I was-

Saturday night, the band was hopping! it was asome!!  I worked a whole heck of
a lot more stations than the first night......but heard no EU! Arh-  missed
the EA8 too- but getting two JA's split was fb Saturday morning- All in all, I
spent too much time looking for mults....had some great run rates but figured
this was the CQWW ......so I really wanted to bag a few new ones-  ZF and VP2E
sufficed- but man, did I give up Q's to find them-  but hey- that's two new
ones- Ill take the tradeoffs- I only have 13 countries on 160 confrimed to
date- but only need VK for 160 WAC...go figure-

I worked 4 other WY stations- most ever in any contest this year-

If you are interested in putting up an Inverted L:

Wow, what a great antenna- not to knock my old vertical but .....

My antenna is 55 feet vertical standing 3 feet off my tower with the remaining
73 feet of the 128 foot wire leaning over towards EU pulled out about 150 feet
from the tower-  I had no idea what I was doing when I made this antenna
earlier this month- N2IC suggested a simple design to get my 160 meter signal
across the stateline and W0AH gave me some pointers too- 

After an initial investment of $20, I was set last week when it worked ok with
two 135 foot radials and seven 35 foot radials....the SWR was 1.5 to
1.......it worked great! I was actually talking on the left and right coast
with ease- but, do you see the problem here with the SWR?????

After bragging about how my new antenna worked so well on the local DX
cluster- I was told by W0YG it made a great tuned dummy load- as the low SWR,
unknown to me at the time, was a clear indication my ground loss sucked- so
per Charlie's suggestion-, I added a whole bunch of short radials....28 to be
exact and removed the long radials- gasp! my SWR went flying high- What was
hapening here?? Houston, we have a problem-

The night before, I worked 3DA0CA on 160 meters with the new design- but
adding the radials made something go adrift- After calling 911 several times,
I sat down and read a bit- then, I called K0RF and AA0RS and they explained
what was happening- W0YG also filled me in- Now, if you are a 160 meter guru,
you know what was happening...but if you are not- ie: me, I'll fill you in- 

I am not an engineer, but as I understood the explanations, as you improve the
ground system of a vertical, ie: inverted L, the impedence match between your
50 ohm feedline and the antenna goes a bit whacko- but it is a good thing- it
just means your antenna is working better- in my case, the impedance
difference between the feedline and the antenna, with the ground system
improved, went to about a 4:1 match-  ...........so how did I fix it??? 

Well, I could take off just enough radials to reduce the SWR to a tolerable
level- (that did work by the way) or I could buy a device to match the
feedline with the antenna,  called a unun (UNbalanced to UNbalanced
Transformer Matching Device)  and continue to improve my ground system-

I got my UnUn through Amidon- Amidon makes the device to match a variety of
possiblities......in fact, their model W2FMI-1.78:1-HMMU50 can match  a 50 ohm
coax line to a wire antenna with an impedance ranging from 3.125 ohms up to
36.76 ohms.......in my case, I used the 12.5 to 50 ohm match and it brought
down my SWR to a 1:1 match at my resonant point- it had been as high as 5:1
before I used the UNUN, so it was very cool to see how this device worked- 

The unun was very simple to install.....you just hook your antenna feed line
into one side, and the antenna into the other- any lounge lizard, ie: me, can
do it-

It is not a game of hit and miss trying to figure out what the antenna's
impedance is-  don't let it discourage you from putting up an inverted L- you
simply just keep trying various settings with the UNUN until the SWR comes
down- 
  
Now that I have the impedance problem resolved, I can keep adding radials!!
Since last week,  I  added twenty 135-145 footers and kept the twenty eight 34
footers (short radials) attached....I used insulated wire and just laid the
radials on the ground- 

Thats almost 3,000 feet of wire- but I plan on adding a total of 120 long
radials- it is amazing what the radials do- every time I added another four
radials, before inserting the unun in line, the SWR went up- so the effect of
even a few radials is measurable- I imagine that once  I get a total of 120
long  radials on, my antenna's impedance will be down to just a few ohms- we
shall see-

Performance is great!  Even with just a few radials, it's worked fb- But with
the additional radials,  I really competed in this contest with a puny amp--
In fact, I only missed one station, the EA8, that I found in the pile ups- and
I got through on the first call with both JA stations I worked Saturday
morning with pile ups galore- it is so easy to put one of these antennas up-

If you want to see a good 160 meter inverted L design- buy the book "DXing On
The Edge" published by the ARRL- After going through the learning proces the
hard way, it looks like I used K1ZM's design shown on page 11-10, but W1BB's
design in the book is a performer too- my friend, Bill, K0MP, uses it and has
a blasting signal using just four raised radials- 

If you have any suggestions on an inverted L design, pse let me know- I'd
really enjoy any designs etc you might have........I'm really hooked on this
antenna and want to learn from other's experiences-

See you in the next contest- and GOoooooooo Broncos!  73  Paul  N0AH

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