Topband: Review of Rig Expert AA-55 antenna analyzer on 160 meters with BCB QRM

[W0MU Mike Fatchett]

Good to hear.  Santa just dropped off the AA-230 Zoom.  I have yet to 
play with it on a real antenna.  Nice piece of gear.  Well done.


On 12/11/2017 9:10 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist wrote:
> The Rig Expert AA-55 was recently reviewed in QST; you can read
> all about it there.  The QST review shows that its drive level
> is something like +12 or +13 dBm, so I hoped that this would
> enable it to work on 160m at my QTH.  My QTH is located 6 miles
> from a 50 kW AM BCB station on 1140 kHz, over high conductivity
> ground .  On my 90 foot top loaded vertical, it produces
> around +10 dBm.  There are also a dozen or so other
> stations 20 dB below this one, including one at 1700 kHz.
> Previous attempts with various network analyzers, even using
> a very exotic BCB reject filter, were unsuccessful.
>
> I went ahead and purchased the AA-55 anyway, because it would
> be very useful for a lot of other stuff.  After using it for various
> measurements on bands other than 160 meters, I would rate
> its general utility as "perfect", just what I need for HF
> antennas, and the whole thing is self contained (no laptop
> to drag around, although you can attach one to download
> measurements.)  So I totally got my money's worth before even
> trying it on 160 meters.
>
> One thing that impressed me was ease of use.  Many hobby
> type analyzers I have used have a terrible user interface.
> The AA-55 was intuitive.  I never read the manual.  I
> just got to work with it.
>
> Anyway, after I completed my recent maintenance project on the 160
> meter vertical, I simply hooked the AA-55 directly to the vertical
> at the base.  To my amazement, this thing just WORKED!
> No BCB interference, and I wasn't even protecting it with a
> filter.  "Finally", as they say.  I was very pleased to find
> out that my base resistance was 24 ohms, which is the same
> as what EZNEC says it should be over perfect ground.  So
> the ground screen gets a clean bill of health.
>
> I can highly recommend this product.
>
> Rick N6RK
> _________________
> Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband