Hi Stan: Do you already have the Alpha Delta?
I had a DX-DD for years, then purchased a DX-LB. Both worked well, and were EXTREMELY robust. These things are built to survive a nuclear attack. Consequenty, they are heavy. The wires kink and no ammount of stretching seems to make them unkink. The 160 coils are even heavier! I have a small tower, and was always afraid that these antennas would pull it down! The KAT3 worked fine with both of them, even enabling operation everywhere on 160. My MFJ998 would not tune more than 60kHz of 160 on the DX-LB, but 80 and 40 worked fine on both of the tuners. I have since removed both of these antennas, given up on 160m from within my small city lot and now have a "Carolina Windom 80LP" which I traded the DX-LB for. This very light, very easy to send aloft antenna works surprisingly well. It is an off-center fed dipole that has a 22 foot RG8X coax transition piece. The coax radiates in the vertical plane. This coax it then attached to a choke to which you attach your coaxial feedline. I feed mine with 100ft of RG8X, 30feet of which is in a coil at my antenna interface panel to act like a choke. The ends of the 134 foot long wires are folded down and weighted with fishing line sinkers to make it fit in the 100ft of horizontal space I have available. This doesnt seem to bother it, and may be helpful in a "bobtail curtain" sort of way (although I dont believe in RF VooDoo!) Its somewhat expensive for a chunk of wire (like all of these manufactured dipoles are), but I continue to be amazed at how well it works for me. And it has stayed up through lots of wind and weather. Supposedly designed for low heights (mine is at 38 feet at the highest point) it has the advantage over the Alpha Delta of being useable on 80 through 10 meters INCLUDING the WARC bands. The KAT3 or the MFJ998 has never had a problem anywhere with this antenna. The other advantage for me is that this model (the 80LP) is built with smaller parts than the "normal" Carolina Windoms. Its really light and the uninsulated wire is nearly invisible, so it makes my wife much happier than the crooked #12 solid grey on the Alpha Deltas. The key to this antenna apears to be keeping the "vertical radiation" feeder coax as vertical as possible and away from metal. I tried to slope the radiating coax feeder away, and it didnt work very well. Mine is 15 feet away from my tower, the nearest metal, and drops down above my pool patio. I then run the RG8X coax from the shack in a conduit along a sidewalk, exit the conduit and go about 6 feet up to the choke unit. My tribander is 2 feet directly above its highest point (not the feedpoint, BTW), and this does not seem to bother either antenna, although I bet there is some interaction. You do the best that you can with the space that youre given! -lu-W4LT- K3 # 3192 --------------- From: stan levandowski <sjl...@optonline.net> To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Sent: Sun, September 19, 2010 8:49:48 PM Subject: [Elecraft] K2 - KAT2 Tuner and Alpha Delta DX-EE Dipole I would like to correspond with a K2/KAT2 owner who is actually using an Alpha-Delta DX-EE dipole.? This is a rather pricey "limited-space" antenna and would like to hear directly from some "real world" users. My guess is that there won't be too many of you out there but I thought I'd ask anyway. My fundamental question: Does the KAT2 get along with the DX-EE on all bands? 73, Stan Levandowski WB2LQF HF QRP CW -- Doing more with less for over 50 years! QCWA #35038? OOTC #4558? NAQCC #4740? SKCC #6488? FISTS #14992 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
