[CQ] Greetings from KJ6ANT

Art Peel artpeel at glowingthings.com
Wed Oct 28 13:18:52 UTC 2009


Thanks for the info, Mark.  AmTech day looks pretty awesome and I will  
check it out.   As far as the frame antenna goes, it's so easy to  
build that I'm just going to go ahead and try it, especially since I  
already have some high voltage variable capacitors.  Even if it turns  
out not to work that well, it will have been a useful exercise for me,  
just to get me started on antenna experiments.  I'll post my results  
here.

I've heard of those other antennas you mention, but have not heard any  
personal reviews of them until now. I will definitely keep them in  
mind for future purchase or home-brew projects.

Your slinky antenna sounds like a great thing to bring to a  
noisebridge ham meetup.

cheers,
Art



On Oct 27, 2009, at 11:00 PM, Mark Cohen wrote:

>
>
> Hey Art,
>
> Great seeing this on the CQ list..
>
> I think you bring up a great point, here in the city we're space  
> restricted and often legally restricted (condo rules) from putting  
> up decent antennas. Often we have to compromise.
>
> The PAC-12 is a great portable antenna, I know James Bennett the  
> maker of this antenna. He's been known to show up to QRP meetings in  
> Livermore and at Pacificon. He's also local and might be fun to have  
> show up at our space sometime.
>
> I've used the PAC-12 with great results. A friend of mine brought  
> his over in July for Field Day where we worked about 50 stations on  
> that antenna. We also used a BuddyPole that I own with good results.  
> (If you haven't seen the buddypole, check them out. They are very  
> expensive, but well engineered.
>
> The trick to getting the PAC-12 working is setting up a network of  
> wires on the ground to act as the groundplane. I found that getting  
> ribbon cable in 20ft lengths works REALLY well for this. You can  
> split off 3 or 4 wires from one end in multiple bunches or groups..  
> This way you have one solder point and lots of wire spread out in a  
> fan around the antenna.
>
> Another great antenna system is the Superantenna by W6MMA. He's got  
> lots of decent designs as well as yagis. They are also not cheap,  
> but are VERY efficient. A friend worked a bunch of EU stations on 5W  
> recently from SLAC (We have a monthly gathering there called AmTech  
> day, check it out.. Its great fun!)
>
> As for your Wire Frame Antenna, I would actually stay away from  
> those unless you need a listening antenna. *yes, you can tune them,  
> but they are very limited* As I'm sure you're aware, we're  
> experiencing one of the quietest solar cycles to date, this means  
> that propagation currently sucks. (http://www.spaceweather.com and  
> n0nbh.com (http://members.cox.net/n0nbh/) are good sites for  
> spaceweather info) So, the important thing to keep in mind is that  
> you want something high up in the air (1/4 w of your working freq,  
> so a 20m antenna should be 15ft up from the ground, a 160m wireframe  
> would have to be atleast 131ft high)
>
> Chances are, you are going to want to experiment with different  
> designs, I wouldn't worry too much about getting permanent antennas  
> in the air, unless you live in a place where you can put up a tower.  
> (If you can raise a tower in the city, I would be the first to visit  
> your shack! :) ) Try out a 35ft mast with a 10g piece of wire and a  
> random wire tuner, you would be surprised how well those can do.
>
> I just recently built a slinky antenna with a 1:1 balun and 4  
> slinkies. (2 on each side, soldered together) and put it up on a  
> tripod at 15 feet... It performed pretty well! The total build was  
> about $30
>
> Well, I hope this gives you some good info, I'm looking forward to a  
> meetup soon!
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark (K6EF)
>
>
>
> On Oct 27, 2009, at 10:10 PM, Art Peel wrote:
>
>> I'm recently upgraded to General and am still working on getting on
>> the air on HF.  I'll be trying out a newly-built PAC-12 portable
>> antenna (for car portable operations) soon and will also be building
>> something along the lines of this project: http://web.telia.com/~u85920178/antennas/frameant.htm
>> for home use.  Small loop antennas seem like a good way to go for
>> folks like me living in apartments in the city.
>>
>> A meetup sounds like a great idea.   We could bring in gear, discuss
>> possible nets as well as projects.
>>
>> Art
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> CQ mailing list
>> CQ at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/cq
>
> Mark Cohen
> markc at binaryfaith.com
>
> Science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a  
> fine understanding of human fallibility.
> -Carl Sagan, 1996
>




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