Topband: Antenna Progress---Update

[EP Swynar]

Good Day All,

A short while back, a number of folks asked for any & all progress reports on my "...shortened radial" experiments. Here 'tis...

This past Friday I FINALLY retired the long-suffering mower into the garage for the seaon, & tackled the front yard with wire in hand. Beneath my existing second inverted "L", I laid-out twelve 1/8-wave ground radials atop the grass, as evenly spaced as I could put them, what with the rain falling upon my head, & all(!)...I then ran back & forth into the shack probably a dozen times, checking the SWR with each slight turn of the air variable capacitor at the base the "L" (my two inverted "L's" are 170-feet long, and are matched to equal lengths of RG-6 coax with separate weather-enclosed air-variable capacitors).

A common 1:1 SWR match at 1.820-MHz was finally confirmed with each antenna. By the end of the afternoon, I had two inverted "L's" spaced 1/4-wave apart, each with an even dozen 1/8-wave long radials beneath. I then inserted my 135-degree phasing line, in turn, between the east & the west "L", to confirm that the SWR didn't change whether I was favouring east, or west...

The band has been rather "spotty" at this end all weekend, but I did manage to snag 4 Europeans with array beaming east. What's especially comforting --- in the absence of cold, hard, scientific "A" vs."B" comparisons --- is the fact that all contacts were established on the first call. Additionally, in at least one of the QSOs, I received a 579 report, while other stations on this side were heard to receive only 559's, & the like...

Again, hardly scientific, I know, but the effort in raising these stations was less than that incurred with just the one element used in past DX'ing activities.

Next up: a THIRD inverted "L" --- in a tri-angular set-up --- and additional ground radials, even matched in number, beneath all three. The plan is to stick with no radial longer than 1/8-wave, however, in all instances. 

Oh yes, the manual switch box in the shack --- a veritable maze of wires, to permit 6-point directional switching with a tri-angular array --- will need to be de-bugged, too...NOT a chore that I am especially looking forward to. But its proper operation will greatly facilitate the opportunity to take full advantage of the set-up, when it's finally complete & running.

Stay tuned for more progress reports, if interest in the readership might justify future such chapters in this saga...

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ