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Old 09-06-2014, 09:37 AM   #3
Mr. Ham
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 95
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Performance results:

At the shack, at the same height, at the same time of day, on the same frequency, there was no perceived difference between the Barker& Williamson BWD 90 - Folded dipole antenna and the OCF 80 dipole on all bands.

The Barker&Williamson being a much more expensive antenna, that acts somewhat like a 2 element beam antenna on 20m and a true di pole antenna on 40m. The only advantage to the B&W being that it is an all band antenna - will work everything from 6 meters to 80 meters with a built in antenna tuner on most transceivers...

Field Day results - Ft. Venango Mike & Key club -

80 meter off center fed dipole - QRP version - 100 watts

2014 - 360 QSO's on 40m in 6 hours
- 60 qso's on 80m in 1 hour...

2012 - 600 QSO's in 12 hours of operation 20 / 40 / 80 meters.

All honest signal reports were near 5/9 for everyone I worked with just 100 watts....

In 2014 I shut down early due to band conditions - noisy ( static crashes ) - and a imminent threat of lightning.

I lacked covered transportation for my gear - ( the trailer was broke down with a bad wheel bearing ), and I had no tent to operate from.

Had I stayed, I would have easily surpassed 1000 QSO's - even while operating on a band with two other operators on the same band.

One operator at our field day site was using CW - QRP, while another was operating digital modes on 40 meters during the daytime.
I had a lot of QRM in my receiver from the other two operators..

We shut down at 7 PM for supper.

Due to a lack of help unloading and setting up my equipment, I did not get on the air until 3:30 PM Saturday, which caused some problems finding a quiet frequency to operate from - away from the other operators..

I was limited to the upper portion of 40m - 7.250 - 7.290 MHz...

This was with my antenna being 30' off the ground!.....

I would wholeheartedly suggest to anyone that is looking to operate remotely - emergency communications - to have at least one of these antenna's in their Go Bag.

The Off-Center Fed Dipole antenna - "QRP" will operate the whole way up to 440 Mhz without an antenna tuner...
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