Condo Rules Rule, Telescope at Local Hamfest

Well, kids, even the 2 meter slim jim (and especially the feedline) must go. I was literally SHOCKED by the intensity of at least one neighbor’s reaction (even though he had never uttered a single word to me personally, he nevertheless felt unabashed at flogging my feedline installation in a public forum).

So be it.

I’m now turning all my energy toward moving the QTH to my own little sacrosanct ship in the harbor. No antenna CC&Rs down there, plus it puts my HF antenna (long wire) that much closer to that wonderful salt water counterpoise. Combined with the masthead marine VHF antenna providing double duty for ham 2 meter, 220 & 440 (including APRS), good to go!

Next month I’ll be able to afford backstay insulators, copper foil and GTO-15 high voltage wire. Then up she goes! Movin the IC746 to the pilothouse, along with my AH-4 tuner, a desk mic, the iambic paddle and my favorite straight key. Yup, then life will be good again, radio boys ‘n girls.

Years past, I have used e-QSL, but found that less than satisfying. So I’ve just received my first hard copy QSL cards (from www.cheapqsls.com):

 

(sorry ’bout the lousy pic – too lazy to go back and take another – you get the idea – nothin’ fancy, just the basics, but was good fun mailing out a few today, especially the CWs!).

Went to a hamfest in Ft Myers yesterday. Saw an interesting t-shirt there:  “Without CW, its just CB!”

My favorite was, “My wife says if I transmit one more time, she’s leaving me… Over.”

Besides the customary bits ‘n pieces for the junk drawer, got a terrific deal on a motor drive Meade telescope for the XYL’s bday, and got a chance to play with the HT, including en route:

One mobile antenna farm in the parking lot was particularly impressive (notice the TarHeel HF antenna in the foreground – not displayed is a HUGE capacitance hat up top):

This guy (or gal)’s gotta be single or married to a ham:

73 dit dit

Quarter Wire to Copper Tube Slim-Jim

Well, after the hex beam came down (being shipped to the next proud owner – in Missouri), I was left antenna-less, so until the feedline conduit comes down, I experimented with a “quarter wire” (quarter wavelength ground plane vertical whose magnet mount I stuck to the top of a steel air conditioner compressor:

Made a few contacts in Punta Gorda (ten miles or so away), but weak and noisy. So I had homebrewed a slim jim copper tube antenna whose design is supposed to sport some gain (not a ground plane like the wire, but rather a tuned stub that I tuned to minimum SWR with my antenna analyzer).

Tied the SJ to my old HF feedline instead of the quarter wire, and now am talking to folks 30 miles away simplex (no repeaters). Huzzah!

Still playin’ around, but seems to be a good design with lower noise and longer range on these (line-of-sight) frequencies.

No good, obviously, for anything longer range than that, but one step at a time, as they say. Not bad for an antenna that’s only a few inches wide and just a tad over four feet long.  

 

I continue to investigate equipment that will allow me to relocate my primary QTH to my boat – things like backstay insulators (allows me to convert one of the wires that holds up the forty-two foot mast – 54 feet AGL) into a long-wire antenna), copper foil (which connects the antenna to the tuner to the grounding shoe on the hull, i.e., the RF ground), lengths of 450Ω twin lead that will serve to enhance my counterpoise to better launch signals, big honkin’ fused power leads to the batteries, etc. Then, of course, installing all this stuff is tricky and time-consuming so as to avoid nasty RFI on the marine electronics (unacceptable when this stuff helps navigate the ship to avoid hostile waters, grounding, sinking, and all that undesirable stuff)!

Watch this space…

73 de Gene K0GKJ dit dit

Hex Beam Down, But Not Out!

Well, gang, the hex beam is off the roof of the ole condo after an amazing few weeks of really good performance, proximity to the metal roof notwithstanding. I’m now looking for a lower profile HF antenna that the neighbors won’t bitch so much about. Saga continues. Could have resisted removal, but we don’t want to create an antagonistic atmosphere with our neighbors (who all live very close!).

Interesting sidebar: I placed an add on QTH.com, ARRL’s online classifieds, and I bet I had a dozen offers to buy this baby in less than twenty-four hours! The first person to say, “I want it” is getting it (thanks Bernard!) and as soon as his check clears, off it goes to Missouri! I’m sure it will provide many years of great performance there as well.

Been a good run, hex nuts, and when I move out of the condo and into a house where I can finally create that beautiful antenna farm, I’ll have another.

Leo, thanks for your terrific support after the sale, and for your guiding hand on the installation.

73 dit dit

Angry Villagers Prevail – Awesome Antenna Ostracized!

The Condo QTH saga continues…

That’s the headline in the soap opera of this covenant-strangled ham. Sucks, to be sure, but not to worry. Where there’s a will, there’s always a way. So I move the ’shack’ to the boat. Could be a whole lot worse!

Yes, the antenna must come down from a terrific roof-top location, thirty-eight feet up AGL and within view of a saltwater shore. If you can imagine, someone said it wasn’t consistent with yadda yadda! Clearly at least two unwashed heathens who were so vociferous that our homeowner’s board had little choice but to rescind its earlier approval. So be it.

I’ve appealed to our board’s sense of common decency to remunerate me for unrecoverable installation expenses that amounted to over $500 out of pocket (not including the antenna, rotator, feedline, control lines, of course, since I hope to at least partially recoup from that $1,000 or so).

Speaking of which, an almost new (installed less than a month) hex beam directional antenna (from K4KIO, of course), covering 20, 17, 15 & 10 meter bands), along with a very nice RCA rotator with remote control and 12 memories, is for sale. $575 firm, not including shipping, which is a heckuva a deal for one of you that has more flexibility over the “sky rights” in your neighborhood than me. See posts below for pics…

I’ve turned to a new direction. My new Yaesu VX-8R needed a little help on VHF (2M) with respect to the altitude of its antenna, so I dug up an SMA-to-SO239 adapter to hook it up to my marine VHF antenna, atop my 54.5 foot sailboat mast (after checking resonant frequency and SWR with my antenna analyzer, and found the SWR to be well within acceptable limits for 2m (below the marine VHF band), hooked it up, and works great!

And this is my view from the boat QTH looking WSW toward Cuba, Central America, etc.

NAnd the nice thing about the QTH being on the boat is an awesome saltwater counterpoise from which to launch an HF signal, and it’s movable! Guess that makes me a mobile HF station (again), once I relocate the ICOM 746 and AH-4 tuner, that is.

73 dit dit

Homebrew Microwave Antennas That Perform!

I had a problem.

My apartment is surrounded and divided by twelve+ inch thick steel-reinforced concrete walls, and sandwiched between steel pan and prestressed/reinforced concrete floors and ceilings (we’re on the middle of three floors). In effect, I live in an efficient Farraday Cage! Great for preventing RFI on the neighbor’s toaster oven and resisting storms here in hurricane country, but lousy for RF signal propagation. Might also have an interesting effect on lightening strikes as we’re near the lightening capitol of the U.S., but not sure about that…

Two reasons why I care.

First, indoor HF antennas don’t work – the topic for another story.

Second, and germain to this post, my wireless router doesn’t penetrate those walls well enough for my 2.4 GHZ router to shroud my 75 foot long apartment with an adequate wireless “bubble”. My neighbor, closest to the router, gets a better wireless signal than I do in some of my rooms!

I spotted a clever but simple design that costs virtually nothing to try (the best kind) that appealed to my homebrew antenna DNA. The principle: slide a homebrewed parabolic reflector over each of the two antennas on a Linksys router to direct its RF energy, thereby ostensibly creating about 9dbi of gain!

 

Check it out:

The design and template can be found at www.freeantennas.com. Just print it out to cut the wood scraps into the proper parabolic shape, and apply a little creativity and elbow grease! 

 

Lookin’ down:

 

These crude 2.4 gig parabolic reflectors increased the range of my old wireless router by at least 60%, maybe more. Not bad for less than a buck worth of materials, ALL of which came from various junk shelves ‘n drawers.

 

I now have a strong WiFi signal down the entire 75 foot length of my apartment/fortress! The only weaker spot is right at the opposite end of a forty-something foot load-bearing (steel-reinforced concrete) wall at least 15 inches thick from the router’s location, but even then, the signal is adequately bouncing around to get a medium-strength signal there too !

 

I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if my neighbor “behind” those reflectors (and down one floor) now finds he’ll have to buy into his own WiFi signal instead of pirating mine (I really don’t mind, but he’s on his own!). That gain obviously came from the backside of these antennas

 

Amazing! And yes, I do enjoy homebrewing antennas (antennae?), as I’m sure do many of you, but this was so easy, it was almost disappointing in its lack of challenge. I didn’t even need my MFJ269 antenna analyzer – there’s really nothing to analyze and tune as all the modeling and design was a simple “cut ‘n paste”…

 

I did also increase the ‘altitude’ of the router itself by about three feet (top shelf instead of middle shelf) and ‘aimed’ the reflectors down the length of my condo. I’m thinking that helped a bit too. My signal now easily penetrates at least three non-load-bearing (steel studs and sheet rock) walls and one set of sliding glass doors out to our lanai (that’s ‘4 season porch’ to you northerners!) almost twice as far away as its previous effefctive range!

 

Materials:

• A couple of pieces of scrap wood (sawed out with a skill saw after marking the parabolic shape on each with Mr. Erskine’s template and a piece of old-fashioned carbon paper (yup, lo-tech all the way!). I then took a belt sander, inverted it and clamped to a workbench, and moved the wood over the sander to quickly shape the pieces of wood more precisely to the lines transferred to the wood.
• Two 8 inch plastic squares cut out of a storage bin lid (a box cutter did the job nicely). This stuff is stiff enough to keep a curve, but soft enough to bend by hand (others have reported used old cookie sheets or other pieces of metal – too ambitious for this lazy sod!)
• About a yard of heavy-duty aluminum foil
• Six small brass screws to screw the foil-lined plastic square (dimensions included on Mr. Erskine’s template).
• Some spray adhesive (optional) to ensure the foil adhered well to the plastic backing as it was bent to its parabolic curve.

That’s about it. Cool, huh?

I do still need to buy a hard-wired access point for our living room though for connecting the HDTV and Blu-Ray directly to the Internet, and that will come when we switch to from 1 mpbs DSL Internet access to 20 mbps cable Internet access.

Looks right at home in the shack too, doesn’t it?

Right now, at least, I can sit out in the lanai at the other end of the apartment at our dining room table and work on the laptop  if I want to ‘come out of the closet’ (where my Internet access point and radio shack are set up)! So instead of looking at plaster walls, I can watch the palm trees swaying in the sea breeze! Life is indeed sweet.

73

de K0GKJ

dit dit

First QSO Card at Condo QTH!

Well, in spite of the fact that my hexbeam antenna (and feedline conduit) must come down after only having been up for a matter of days, I’m very proud of making some good contacts. My first QSO card at this QTH documenting a solid voice contact with WB7WNF, Raleigh, in Bonney Lake, Washington State. Not bad with the antenna pointing North, not Northwest, and at just 60 watts. Thanks for the card, Raleigh. response in transit soon (as soon as I get new QSO cards printed!).

 

By the way, the new Yaesu VX-8R HT is working out pretty well. I love the APRS (automatic position/packet reporting) feature, and being a quad bander (here in the US) is cool, with great scanning features and wideband FM, although I’m a bit disappointed in its transmit range. I live less than 20 miles from the nearest repeater, and yesterday I found it necessary to climb twenty feet up my sailboat mast at the dock just to be clearly heard from that machine! Oh well, guess I’m just not used to HTs yet. I plan on getting an SMA-to-S)239 adapter so I can hook it up to my marine VHF antenna at the top of my 54 foot mast. That should help!

Even though I have a nice Bencher Iambic paddle, I still like bangin’ on my favorite straight key. Picked it up at a hamfest a couple of years ago. Just says “NYNE” on the back. Can anyone help with identification?

Tried unsuccessfully to hit both the 20M QRP and DX calling freqs this morning. Will try to work with the FISTS Sunday slow chat later today…

I really want to make some CW contacts between now and New Year’s Eve Straight Key night before the hexbeam has to come down (long wire, here I come!). So any help here would be appreciated! Any slow (<15 WPM) CW scheds, anyone?

73

dit dit

de k0gkj

Angry Villagers Rise Up!

Ever wonder what Dr. Frankenstein felt when only HE thought his creation was a thing of beauty, and angry villagers stormed his castle with smokey torches and dirty pitch forks?

Some of my wonderful condo neighbors were encouragingly very supportive of my big beautiful hex beam antenna. Some harbored unspoken consternation but remained supportive in spite of their trepidation (thanks, my friends!).

Others, however, became incensed to the point of inciting an altercation at the December home owner’s board meeting. I guess I overestimated the fervor I had hoped that all my neighbors would share over this wonderful measure of both disaster preparedness and the potential for reaching out to our soldiers in the field (MARS, etc.).

Clearly, not only beauty, but patriotism and the importance of emergency planning, even in hurricane country, out here at the end of the road, truly are in the eye of the beholder.

After spending four years and thousands of dollars to make my CCR-constrained HF QTH a hard-won reality, this was a crushing blow.

So… back to stealth. 

I’m hoping to retain the conduit that carries my feedline(s) from roof to apartment (unfortunately, this is NOT simply a vertical drop as our units are staggered and stacked) and fall back to a flat top (horizontal wire) dipole somewhere closer to the (orange & silver metal in the pic below) roof line. (top of our metal mansard roof – as close as undesirable capacitative coupling with the wall will allow):

I was encouraged by a key lesson learned from the installation of this (wire) hex beam. With the bottom of the antenna just four feet above the roof line, I was experiencing decent (not ideal) SWRs on all (four) bands, hence plan B = a dipole (simply a straight horizontal wire for those of you (non-hams) who don’t know what a dipole is).

Plus I’m a balanced antenna bigot, especially this far (3+ stories) off the ground and no ground or ‘floating rooftop’ radials possible) with a coupler is the way to go. I also don’t want to risk RFI in the shack commonly associated with unbalanced antennas.

Too bad, as I was really becoming a ‘hex nut’.

I guess I now have a great field day antenna and will resort to using it for portable ops on the beach down the road! I’m already wondering how I can break down the HB and mast sections to fit into (onto) the kayak for paddling out to one of the islands nearby, getting me even closer to a great saltwater ‘counterpoise’!

Ever positive (mostly),

73 de K0GKJ

dit dit

New HT on Order; HF Antenna Development

Well, I finally broke down and ordered my very first HT (handheld transceiver). Should be here any day now… here’s a picture from a reviewer (see link below):

Like any topic, the choice of an HT is a highly ‘religious’ debate. Trying to rise above all that, after performing due diligence, my research leads me to believe that Yaesu was the way to go, and the VX-8R was the unit for me. My objectives were:

1.  full function and a top choice with respect to the gadget factor,
2. rugged reliability as I anticipate potentially hostile outdoor and marine ops,
3. future expandability and upgradability.

Check out the features of this baby by clicking here. , and some of the reviews of this unit here.

I haven’t purchased the (spendy) GPS unit to enable APRS (automatic packet reporting system) yet, but once the wallet stretches back into shape after shrinking significantly from this initial purchase (also just ordered my wife a new laptop!), that, along with the necessary bigger (1800 mah) battery (comes with 1100 mah) and speaker mic (to mount GPS) will be next.

Why an HT? I want to get into amsat (amateur satellite) ops, become active in my local ARES (amateur radio emergency service) and RACES (radio amateur civil emergency service) organizations, and an HT is a nice ante for all of the above for mobile ops, in addition to my shack’s HF & VHF capabilities. Additionally, APRS has always fascinated me, so we’ll see if this tidy little unit satisfies that hunger.

An interesting development with my rooftop condo hexbeam HF antenna. A nearby highrise that looks down on my roof, antenna, air conditioners, soil stacks, etc. (!) brought the antenna to the attention of our parent (think “city-wide’) home owner’s association, and I now find that I also have to appeal to their sense of civic disaster-preparedness for yet another approval for this antenna. So be it. I’ve been at this approval game for over four years now. Onward!

73 de K0GKJ

dit dit

First Non-US Contact… Lots ‘a Listenin’, Some Talkin’ !

With filters and chokes hopefully doing their job, preventing interference with my neighbors on the other side of the steel and concrete wall of our condo, I made my first voice transmission at about one third RF power (~30 watts) with Mike (W2YP) in new Rochelle, NY, just north of New York City at 1059 EST on 14.200 Mhz (twenty meter) USB (upper sideband).

Mike is running a cubical quad antenna up a whopping 19 meters (62 feet), pushing just 80 watts of power.

My antenna was still parked at due north (sort of aimed at NY) at the time, although he was aimed at Europe, not Florida, and I was timidly running only about one-third power (~30W) for now, he still gave me a report of 3×3 (somewhat readable, not very strong). More importantly, I listened to him work many stations in Europe, learned a good bit about workin’ DX in the last half hour. Things that enabled him to achieve many long distance contacts in a fun and efficient manner. Great job, Mike!

His tag line, “a great pleasure to hear your booming signal this time, every time, and until next time, bye bye!”. Can’t wait to hear him say that about my signal one day soon! Maybe once I feel confident about crankin’ up my RF (radio frequency) output power and learn how to properly aim my beam!

Stations that I listened to Mike work (and could hear both sides of the conversation quite clearly), especially since I started easing the beam from due north to a more easterly direction (more toward Europe):

•  Several stations (individuals) in the U.K. (not too distinct since I was still aimed at the north pole at the time!)
• as I started swinging the beam more easterly, clearly heard (with a good deal of background noise):
  • Jean (F1DWI) in Eloyes, France
  • Rudolf (DK9VX) in Neunkirchen, Germany
  • Jean-Paul (ON4KBZ) in Molenstraat, Belgium
  • Eric (F5NBK) in ARTIGUELOUVE, France
  • AP (GI4VKS) from STRABANE, Northern Ireland, who did a fine job speaking through a voice box surgically implanted in his throat

With my antenna still aimed north, and power eased up to about 60% (60 whole watts! ), I just completed a solid and interesting contact with the Maritime Mobile Service Network (see www.mmsn.org for more info on this emergency communications organizations, specializing in serving maritime (offshore boat and ship) mobile and deployed military radio traffic. Connected with Tom (VE3II) in suburban Toronto, Ontario (grid location FN044) before he relinquished net control to Rooney in Portmore, Jamaica. Tom gave me a 5/7 to 5/9 signal report (best readability, almost best quality signal!) and asked if anyone had any traffic for Punta Gorda, Florida that I could relay. No traffic, but my first participant in a potential communication traffic relay at this QTH (radio station location) in Burnt Store Marina South Shore. On our way, kids!

I monitored a dozen or so other US and non-US contacts (both sides of each) before I needed to shut down the rig and move on to working on the boat (see www.oursojourn.wordpress.com if interested)

A humble start from this location to the fascinating DX side of amateur, but like any new tool, learning its proper use before plunging is the first significant & reasonable step.

So far, I’m quite impressed with this antenna and this location (near salt water shore, relatively clean elevation, a darn good signal launch platform!)

73

de Gene K0GKJ

Final Condo Antenna Tests Successful !

Antenna is now not only up, but leveled and debugged!

Took some effort to get to this point, however. You might find interesting what I found after initial installation…

Guess what… I put the MFJ-269 antenna analyzer on the station (“shack”) end of the feed line from the hexbeam antenna, and was shocked to watch the meter jump wildly in both SWR (standing wave ratio) and impedance (think “resistance”). it is supposed to be of certain values and rock steady. More on this later.

Hmmmm…

I emailed Leo Shoemaker (K4KI0), the supplier of the antenna whose reputation for supporting before and after the sale is stellar, and got an almost immediate response.

As expected he was very helpful with ideas and measurements I could take to zero in on the problem.

Thanks, Leo! Your reputation is well-deserved.

Sounded like a bad connection, Leo suggested, either in my solder joints installing connectors on the roof end of the feedline, or something in the center post of the antenna, very probably NOT anything to do with the wire elements or non-conductive spacers.

Back to the roof.

I first eliminated my feed line as the issue, with the antenna in place.

It did look like the center post of the antenna may indeed be the culprit after getting a few unexpected measurements with my trusty VOM (volt-ohm meter). Resistance (indicator of impedance) jumped around.

Yup, that would cause flakey and erratic SWRs, and weird impedances too!

After removing a couple of pinning bolts and lowering the antenna by manually lifting it and the upper four foot mast section off the top of the lower mast section, hossing it down just five feet (not heavy, just awkward) and temporarily securing it in parallel to the lower mast section (which is bolted to the mansard wall) with strong twine ,while I removed the center post (ugh! a pain, but doable in about five minutes once the antenna is lowered), I took the post down to my test bench.

Yup, the problem was somewhere in that center post. Found erratic continuity between the back of the SO-239 connector (where the feed line connects to the antenna) and the front!

Again, hmmmm…

The culprit: There’s a tiny screw that connects the post’s internal cable harness ground (coax harness shield) to this feedline connector’s outer conductor. That one tiny little screw wasn’t loose, but wasn’t tight either, causing an intermittent connection where a very solid connection is required!

Lesson? Check to ensure ALL connections are good ‘n tight, including the small but important ones like this one!

What’s wrong with this picture? (hex beam, but no center post!):

Checking center post continuity ‘in situ’:

Combined with these nums !! Major league YUCK !! If you don’t get it, read on…

Pulling the center post for further testing and resolution on the bench was not as difficult as I thought since the top of the post, to which all the Kevlar tensioning cords are affixed, comes off the top of the post with some pressure, and can stay connected and in place (whew):

Then it was just a matter of disconnecting each end of the wire elements, the pinning bolt in the baseplate flange, and loosening the two locking allen nuts from the post. Out she came. I did collect all the wire ends that I disconnected from the center post in a cable tie to prevent them from getting unruly in the wind while I was working on the post:

The post went back into the antenna quite painlessly, ALL connections rechecked and resealed (with Coax Seal).

This time I routed the feedline through the hole in the base plate as I should have done in the first place. Functionally, Leo tells me it doesn’t matter, but with the heavy RG-213 coax stuffed through there (and the hole IS large enough to pass the PL-259 connector), it acts as a nice feed line strain relief as the beam rotates.

Note the common mode choke above (for noise suppression), also known as a 1:1 current balun, composed of six Amidon FB-77-1024 ferrite beads available from Ron Mott (W4RDM) at www.hexkit.com at a competitive price. I installed an identical set at the other end of the feed line as well (just in case – as they say, ”can’t hurt!”. The rooftop set also has a couple more smaller Mix 77 (best for these HF frequencies) on each end of the six.

Note the generous loop of feedline to allow for 360 beam rotation:

Down in the station, part of the end-to-end “antenna system”, in addition to the antenna, the feedline, two common mode chokes, I’ve also installed a commercial low pass filter to prevent another type of interference called differential mode interference (don’t ask!). Suffice it to say that I’m going to great lengths to PREVENT interference BEFORE it happens. Lots of other common mode chokes on control lines, connecting cables, etc.

 with the bottom of the antenna literally less than a foot above the metal mansard wall (galvanized steel girders and powder-coated aluminum roof sheathing).

I knew the readings would not be good this close to the roof, and I was right, but wanted to see for myself.  Obviously (to other hams), lower SWR numbers (the three right-most columns below) are better, and anything above 2.0 is not good, with 1.0 ideal:

Band Name (wave length in meters)	Frequency Measured (Mhz)	Antenna down *	Antenna up **	Measurd in-station
20M	14.000	1.9	1.8	1.8
	14.350	1.7	1.5	1.5
17M	18.068	2.0	1.4	1.2
	18.168	2.0	1.5	1.2
15M	21.000	1.9	1.3	1.1
	21.450	3.1	1.8	1.9
10M	28.000	1.2	1.1	1.2
	29.700	5.5	3.4	2.8

Note from these measurements that proximity of the antenna to the metal roof (‘Antenna down’) does indeed impact antenna function – likely an undesirable phenomenon known as capacitative coupling (between roof and antenna) - however, this is a necessary compromise since going higher is simply not an option.

‘Antenna up’ = operating position with the bottom of the antenna just 57 inches above top of metal wall – about the absolute minimum height to get good but not optimal performance. Going higher for better performance is simply not an option here (aesthetically).

Height (AGL) measurements (higher is better):
			in feet:
Base plate to top of center post:			3.58
Top of mansard to base plate:			4.75
Top of mansard wall to flat roof:			4.25
Roof to 3rd floor deck:			10.33
3rd floor deck to 2nd floor deck:			10
2nd floor deck to parking lot:			11.5
Height of base plate AGL #			44.41
Height of top of antenna AGL			40.83
	# AGL = Above Ground Level

The good news is that the roof height at over thirty-five feet AGL will be a big advantage over something mounted closer to the ground, metal mansard wall notwithstanding.

Note from the numbers that elevating the bottom of the antenna just a few feet above the metal has dramatically improved SWR (over-simplified, “performance” readings), particularly for the higher frequencies, as I would expect (short distance = greatest influence over higher frequencies that have shorter wavelengths as measured in meters, in case you care!).

Also note that the in-station measurements, including the fifty foot low loss (RG-213) coax feedline, also had some effect on the total “antenna system” as expected, when measuring the entire antenna system end-to-end, with two sets of Mix 77 chokes (noise suppression beads) to suppress common mode interference, as well as a low pass filter to address differential mode interference:

For those of you who care and understand the following, note that undesirable reactance is thankfully very low! No doubt at all (setting aside all humility) because of a well-designed and carefully implemented installation, end-to-end! This is a sweet antenna, and the countless hams that have contributed to its design and refinements are to be complimented!

“The Sweet Spot” within Each of the Four Bands:
Band Name	Resonant Frequency	SWR	Rs	Lowest Xs
20M	14.205	1.3	37	5
17M	18.090	1.2	42	4
15M	21.095	1.1	45	5
10M	28.229	1.1	50	4
Rs = “real resistance” component of complex impedance (closer to 50 is better)
Xs = “imaginary” component of complex impedance (lower is usually better)

Not too bad considering the necessary installation compromises !

Oh yeah, check this out – is life good, or what! I’ve been waiting for four years to see this! I’m declarin’ this antenna now installed, tested and ready to get heated up!

Additionally, the height AGL (above ground level) that the roof provides is an advantage (higher is ALWAYS better), and the minimum elevation above the metallic roof appears to be a reasonable compromise between function and aesthetics from what I can see right now…

I have yet to hit transmit, however, since I’m learning the ins/outs and do’s/don’t’s of my new on-the-air “neighborhoods” by listening first, plus I wanted all filters and chokes installed and tested first (see below).

But even without aiming this antenna (still just pointed north, its home position), the few minutes I’ve spent just listening, I’m hearing stations from Jamaica to Ontario, from Indiana to Alaska, from Iowa to Colorado, mostly on the band I’m most familiar – twenty meter – a longer-range frequency. A

lso listening to more local transmissions from Cape Coral to Naples to Miami, loud and clear.  

This is gonna be good!

By the way, we had sustained twenty plus knot winds for over twenty-four hours, and while the antenna flex’d its muscle a bit, due to its somewhat flexible shock-absorber structure, she stayed right put! Good first test.

I’ll be contacting the local ARES team (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) once I get my two meter (VHF, i.e., very local) band (frequency range) completely operational. I’m already listening to the NOAA weather channels on VHF. Transmitting is next, once I’m sure my HF stuff (all of the above) is squared away. dont want to change too many variables in the equation all at once!  

FB! (fine business, or “awesome”!)

Next order of business – chasin’ a little DX (long distance contacts) to get my feet on the ground, and my ears and voice and brass on the air (‘poundin’ brass’ is what CW (“continuous wave”, or Morse Code) operators do when operating their keys!

I’m reving up for “straight key night” which is one twenty-four hour period each year, starting on New Year’s Eve, where CW operators communicate with each other using only a traditional Morse code key. Big fun after everyone else is done singing “Auld Lang Syne”, kissing everyone in sight, and its then that the real party reptiles spin up the rigs and start the waves hummin’ with dots and dashes (dits ‘n dahs).

I certainly won’t be viewed as a “legendary fist” (a really good CW operator) by then or anytime soon, but I’ll have some fun that too few people on the planet will ever enjoy! Neat connection with history too!

73 (warmest regards) , or dah-dah-di-di-dit  di-di-di-dah-dah, baby! (say that outloud to yourself real fast- wonderful rhythmic symmetry, no?)

de (this is) Gene (K0GKJ)