Topband: ZD7W
Anyone know if ZD7W will be on again for us tonight or is he tearing down? 73 Dwight NS9I _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Re: Topband: Broadband Inverted L
Exactly what I thought ... any way to slope the leg of the L to get it at the junction of the redials? de ns9i On 11/20/2014 1:17 PM, Tom W8JI wrote: Ground systems cannot be evaluated or estimated by number of feet of wire, just like they cannot be evaluated by SWR or bandwidth, but I'm sure we all agree on this.. The single most important thing Joe said was: The antenna feed point terminates at a four foot ground rod and then I am running a number 14 wire from that ground rod to my existing radial field. That run is about 40 feet. Joes has virtually no ground at all on 160 meters, because his system's ground connection to the radials is via a single #14 wire 40 feet long. A 40 ft long wire laid on earth to the radials, even if Joe had 50 x 100 ft radials, would almost certainly make the ground path impedance hundreds of ohms. Joe's antenna virtually doesn't have a ground connection to radials at all, and this has almost nothing to do with the number of radials or type of radials. It has to do with the 40ft long connection. 73 Tom _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Re: Topband: Help put Haiti on topband
I'm in Wisconsin too and hv them on every band but 6m. Right place at right time I guess. Now if another 150 other countries would show up on 160, I'd be delighted! 73 Dwight NS9I On 10/7/2014 1:03 PM, Lloyd Berg N9LB wrote: I'm in Wisconsin and I've never worked Haiti on topband either. I believe there is a large stateside demand for HH on 160m. 73 Lloyd - N9LB On Tue, Oct 7, 2014 at 12:50 PM, Jim Brown wrote: On Tue,10/7/2014 8:36 AM, Carl Clawson wrote: there will be concentration on working Europe on the low bands How about working W6? In 8 years, I'm missing Haiti on Topband. 73, Jim K9YC _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Topband: Switching Pennants
I am wanting a simple way of switching 3 or 4 pennants from the shack. Anyone done this? Quote From K6SEE ... All four Pennants would be installed with their points all adjacent to each other. Only one feedline would be necessary and only one transformer would be necessary, with the high impedance winding of the transformer being switched to the feedpoint of the Pennant in the desired direction ... 73, de Earl, K6SE 73 Dwight NS9I _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Topband: Switching Pennants
I am wanting a simple way of switching 3 or 4 pennants. Anyone done this? Quote From K6SEE ... All four Pennants would be installed with their points all adjacent to each other. Only one feedline would be necessary and only one transformer would be necessary, with the high impedance winding of the transformer being switched to the feedpoint of the Pennant in the desired direction ... 73, de Earl, K6SE 73 Dwight NS9I _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Re: Topband: DX Window
No clarification Mike ... you're assumptions are correct. When I got up this a.m., it was filled with U.S. stations. Most of them were well known contesters too. "Sad day in the naborhood!" It's an empty hole to put your signal! 73 de NS9I On 12/7/2013 10:34 PM, Mike Waters wrote: I see a lot of USA station, including a couple of regular contributors to this reflector, calling CQ TEST between 1830 and 1835. According to http://www.arrl.org/160-meter "The segment 1.830 to 1.835 should be used for intercontinental QSOs only." I hear a lot of contacts being made between stateside stations. I thought this was for DX stations, and that's mostly what I've heard call CQ TEST there. Maybe someone can clarify this. :-) 73, Mike www.w0btu.com _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Re: Topband: FCP Folded Counterpoise
Mines abt. 20 khz from the lower end. My KPA500 takes care of it all just fine. 73 Dwight NS9I On 10/26/2013 3:54 PM, Mike Waters wrote: What is the useful SWR bandwidth without retuning? 73, Mike www.w0btu.com On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 1:54 PM, Jim F. wrote: It is amazing that a 66' long counterpoise can be effective on 160m. ... the SWR is low at 1.1:1 on 1.824 MHz. _ Topband Reflector _ Topband Reflector
Re: Topband: GAP VERTICAL QUESTION
K7LXC book review was with the Titan. It was a poor performer against the Challenger, much less my other antennas IMHO of my testing between the two, Junk! de ns9i On 12/11/2012 5:13 PM, Tom W8JI wrote: So my question is does anyone have actual experience with these antennas (especially the voyager) as compared to other antennas for a specific frequency. Now guys .. I know you cant really compare a 6 element beam to a vertical of this kind but I am talking about a comparison that is realistic.. like how does it hear, tune, match & get out compared to something like another vertical or a dipole up some reasonable distance. Jim, Years ago someone purchased and had me measure a GAP vertical. The Gap was terrible on 160 and 80 meters. It was OK on most other bands. On 160 meters, although I have a pretty good mobile antenna, I had about the same field strength from my mobile antenna. The Gap was down about 10 dB from a 1/4 wave on 80 meters, as I recall. My mobile antenna is about 20 dB down from my 1/4 wave 160 meter vertical. The ARRL reviewed one Gap vertical in an on-the-air A-B test, and a small ground mounted trap vertical was equal or better. I'm sure you can search ARRL reviews and find this review. Also, the HF Verticals test by K7LXC and Ward Silver compared many verticals, and had about the same results on 80 meters as I found and the ARRL found. All of these completely independent tests were A-B tests against other reference verticals, and all pretty much agreed with each other. This doesn't mean you can't work DX with a Gap, because I can work VK, JA, and Europe on 160 with my mobile antenna. I've worked several Europeans on 160 SSB while driving down the highway. I can, at times, even beat others in pileups from the mobile on 80 meters. Obviously if the Gap is as good as a better mobile antenna, you can probably work a lot of DX with it. 73 Tom ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: GAP VERTICAL QUESTION
All I can say is it depends on how gud ur gnd is. I have a gap challenger dx that was worthless over sandy soil hr in the midwest. Now I am in in more loamy land and it works great. On 40 is performs as well as my 1/2 sq. Depends on ur land! Never outperforms all my other antennas(10 other wires plus the beam on a tower)! Blow the doors off Titan I tried out! Just be happy to have an antenna! ;-) Anything is better then nothing! de ns9i On 12/11/2012 4:50 PM, wa3...@comcast.net wrote: With the prospect of downsizing and moving into senior housing in the future I am starting to look at vertical antennas that will allow me to continue this wonderful hobby. I have heard "some" good things about the GAP series of antennas but the company says they do not need radials on most of them and that worries me. Over the years I have become very skeptical about claims and the other BS put out by most companies ( maybe it is a function of age I dunno) so I wonder if these antennas really work. The two antennas that I am interested are the Voyager DX for 160/80/40 and the Eagle DX for the rest of the bands. So my question is does anyone have actual experience with these antennas (especially the voyager) as compared to other antennas for a specific frequency. Now guys .. I know you cant really compare a 6 element beam to a vertical of this kind but I am talking about a comparison that is realistic.. like how does it hear, tune, match & get out compared to something like another vertical or a dipole up some reasonable distance. I sure hope this has not opend another can of worms.. some how I seem to do that .. private emails are ok..especially it the topic gets out of hand and we get a large volume of comments (Tree please dont shoot me before Christmas my wife will miss me.) Jim WA3MEJ Long Live Seal Team VI http://www.qsl.net/wa3mej/index.htm ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Re: Topband: Inverted L + FCP Report
... and I ditto this! Worked better then previous Tees and L's with 32 radials for me. My L goes up 65' and the remainder of the 150' straight out. Worked perfect 1st shot, no trimming. Length was recommended by Guy! T U Guy K2AV! 73 de NS9I On 12/2/2012 7:47 PM, Markus Hansen wrote: Inverted L + FCP Report (December 2, 2012) Over the last approx. 20 Years I have operated in quite a few 160 contests from my city lot situated on a mountain side on rocky poor soil in North Vancouver BC which is located in the south west corner of the province. I have tried many different 160 meter antenna configurations to try and improve my score without much success. My latest antenna was a full wave very odd shaped 160 meter loop which was better than previous, loaded dipoles, dipoles and inverted L's fed against odd length radials in the ground. Several months ago I decided to give the inverted L another try but this time with a FCP replacing my ground radials. The FCP is located 15 feet above the ground over one end of our home. The vertical wire is 61 feet and then horizontal for 64 feet with another 51 feet of wire sloping down at 40 degrees from the end of the 64 foot length of wire for a total wire length of 176 ft. (I have two 90 foot trees on opposite sides of our city lot to support wire antennas) This puts the maximum radiating current in the top 1/16th section of the vertical wire above all the surrounding houses, trees, power line poles etc. Since the radiating element is longer than a ΒΌ wave length I matched it to 50 ohms at 1824 kHz with a series connected high voltage capacitor of 300 pf. The isolation balun was purchased from Balun Designs, Model 1142s as recommended by K2AV. The measured 2:1 BW is 52 KHz. I was active this weekend during the ARRL 160 meter contest running 100 Watts. I am very happy to report that I was able to hold a CQ freq. for lengthy periods and many stations called me. This has never happened before. Also in S&P most often I was heard on the first call even when the calling station was right at my receiver noise level. In addition I worked the following prefixes with little difficulty. PJ2, C6 XE, KH6, KH8, KL7 and JA's. I even had a JA call me when I was calling CQ. This never happened before. I called CE/K7CA several times and he came back with VE7? but he was unable to get the rest of my call. In addition, several times I heard local hams who run high power ( approx. +12 db advantage to my 100 watts) call someone and make a contact. I would call as well and every time I was also able to make the contact. Obviously my new antenna is working and my conclusion, it is working very well. Thank you Guy, K2AV for you research and Jack, W0UCE for publishing Guy's information on your web site at http://www.w0uce.net/K2AVantennas.html Markus North Vancouver, BC CANADA WEB: www.ve7ca.net ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com ___ Topband reflector - topband@contesting.com
Topband: Stew Perry Log Submittal
I've been trying to submit my log to t...@contesting.com as specified in the rules. It keeps getting rejected ... is it such that they don't want the logs from the warm-ups? 73 Dwight NS9I ___ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
