Topband: Re-Thinking My Antennas...

[Ed Swynar]

Well, yesterday afternoon I fired-up my homebrew pair of 813's for the first time in probably a year---the Top Band DX bug has bitten me again, I'm afraid...

Anyway, I heard an honest-to-goodness 5-8/9-9 G3FTQ working the States---no dice, despite my repeated calls. Then, a bit later up the band, HA9RT was calling CQ & QRZ---again, no dice. How frustrating! The icing on the cake was VE3AT working BOTH stations, with NO apparent problems...

I was using my north-south "inverted V" grounded half loop antenna. I may have to re-configure this thing to the "old reliable", i.e. a simple inverted L...but the dog gone half loop is SO QUIET for reception! The S-meter was hard left the whole night, until the DX stations came into the passband of the IC-751A...

SIGH! All that work & wire, & so little the results!

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ