[RSM] Antennas and SS

[Jack]

First:

Well, I motivated myself to improve our long-wire today and am pleased 
with the result.

The 132-foot long-wire worked well above 7MHz but required an antenna 
tuner on 3.5MHz and refused to work on 1.8MHz. I looked at the antenna 
on my little Autek analyzer and it became obvious it was *way* too short 
on 3.5MHz and even slightly short on some of the higher bands.

I added length, incrementally, and checked resonance each time. After 4 
tries I found I had added  total of 25-feet length to the antenna, for a 
total length of 155-feet, and got good resonance on all bands above 
3.5MHz and a tolerable VSWR on 1.8MHz.  Had I looked at documentation I 
previously downloaded from web sites I would have seen this is one of 
the "magic" lengths for good all-band performance. On all bands the VSWR 
is low enough to allow the TS-590S internal tuner to function properly.

Shelley and I are looking forward to seeing what performance will be on 
80 in upcoming contests.


Second:

We would like to buy a very good mobile antenna in the near future. Yes, 
I know "good" and "mobile" are usually mutually exclusive but does 
anyone have experience with any of the high-end mobile antennas? Some 
antenna tout good performance, even on 80 meters, and I would like to 
hear from anyone with real-world experience.


Finally, what are the plans for RSM members in the upcoming CW and SSB 
Sweepstakes? I will probably operate 16 to 18 hours out of the available 
30 hours on CW (I doubt I can do a full 24) and Shelley and I will split 
the SSB weekend with her operating time taking precedence (pardon the 
expression). Rules can be seen here:

http://www.arrl.org/sweepstakes

73,

Jack VE4SNA/W6NF