[TowerTalk] OCT. CQ Antenna article

[MarchandJohn]

Hi all,

I hope this antenna run-down isn't too boring or out of line....

**DISCLAIMER- This is NOT a precise antenna review by any means!!** 

Was reading thru the October issue of CQ and came across the article on 
P. 24 by Paul Carr-N4PC, ---
     "My 40 Meter Double-Extended Zepp antenna Shows Its Versatility"

Its basically a 178-180' (not critical) wire antenna fed with open wire line...
with a little bit of gain that gets you on 160-10m with a decent signal. 

 [The key words here are: "It gets you on 160-10m with a decent signal!" 
  and thats what its all about!]
 
So, after doing all my yard work (and missing the Pats game) I decided to 
build one of these antennas to replace the homebrew G5RV type antenna I had
up for a few contest seasons.

I installed the antenna as an inverted vee with the center up at about 65 ft.
in a tree on the corner of my 1/4 acre (100' x 100') lot, with each 89 ft leg running down the lot lines at 90 degrees. The ends are at 8 feet off the ground. 

The center insulator is an old Teflon type end insulator I had in the box.
I used about 50 feet of 450 ohm ladder line which I ran down to a W2AU 1:1 balun (from the old ant.) and attached about 30 feet of RG-213 coax into the tuner in the shack.

Initial tests were on 160-10 with the (fast) auto tuner in the FT-990. 

It was hearing a LOT better than the old wire antenna (even on the WARC bands).
It looks like the local noise was also lower as compared to the old antenna too.

Since its a non-resonant type antenna, I used the auto tuner on all bands -and
just like Paul said - the tuner had NO trouble matching the Zepp on any band.
(Also ran it thru the manual tuner and made a tuning chart for all the bands)

I decided to try it out on CW (my favorite), and ssb on the Pa QSO Party and
made about 40 contacts running about 10 watts to see how the antenna performs
(for the SS-CW & CQWW CW/QRP). Every contact was on 1 or 2 calls and no repeats.
I worked the contest on 160-20 and EVERYONE was loud! I worked anyone I could
hear. Running QRP on 80 and 160 isn't great in contests for me, but I think
this antenna will improve my score, especially on 160 where I have had little
success at best.

All in all, the antenna looks promising (even for hams with limited space--- 
where you can shorten the antenna to work on 80-10 and still get good results.)

With only one days testing, it shows promise. I think I'll keep this thing up for a while and try it out in the various contests before the CQ World War-CW.
I may even put the boots to it, run 100 watts and really push the envelope ;-)

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings.

73,
John K1RC 
(ex K1CGJ)
35 mi NW of Boston


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