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Old 04-02-2016, 10:56 PM   #10
ke0me
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2014
Location: Ft. Collins, CO (mail forwarding)
Posts: 303
Default tarheel on a balcony

Finally a nice day and no major chores to do.


Took the Tarheel outside (about 8 feet off the ground), u-bolted the pipe mount to a wood balcony. Ran about 8 ft of ground braid from the ground lug of the mount to the heating system water pipe, and finally, added about 16 feet of wire to the ground lug. The 16 ft wire does not touch the ground wire and is sort of an "L" shape.

Using the antenna analyzer, great results. I only checked 40 and 20 meters due to time. lowest SWR were under 1.5:1 on both bands.

Inside, I could actually hear stations! Guess it helps it is also SSB Sprint contest weekend.

Main reason I did the test was to get a better feel for how many turns are needed for a specific band, and effect of close by metal objects, of which there are many. Tuning on the higher bands is very tricky, like maybe one turn moves the center freq 250 KHz (or is it kHz).

So, now I'm looking forward to a nice warm weekend when I get out and design the mount for the trailer and figure out how to run counterpoise and/or radial wires on the trailer.
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Dick KE0ME
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Gandalf the White (miniature Schnauzer)
2014 Silverado 2500
currently don't own an RV
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