K9AY is a local here in southern Wisconsin. I put up a K9AY and was disappointed in the lack of directionality at my QTH. I spoke to Gary about it at the local Madison DX Club meeting, and he told me that because I had very poor soil conductivity at my QTH, I should put ground radials under the K9AY antenna to supplement the single ground rod. Length of the supplemental radials to be at least as wide as the loops and at maximum no longer than double the width of the loops. Radial placement should be in the ground directly below the loops.
73 Lloyd - N9LB -----Original Message----- From: Topband [mailto:topband-boun...@contesting.com] On Behalf Of terry burge Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 12:26 AM To: topband@contesting.com; terry burge <k...@comcast.net> Subject: Topband: Found my K9AY by WX0B AX-AYl-4 unit Hi folk, Been looking for this for I don't know how long. Had it up out in Keizer but wasn't that impressed but I'll now try it out here. But going to need to get it near some trees and possibly power company transformer on power pole. Maybe some fencing too. Listening to K4IQJ's DX University talk about K9AY style antennas last night on YouTube it sounds like the trees won't be an issue. Unfortunately all I can do is try to get a half wavelength our so on 80 and 40 from transmit antennas. Just no way to do better on my 1.5 acre lot. If anyone has any helpful experience using K9AY's for a RX antenna you might send alone some helpful suggestions. One of the things I always wondered about is it seems like these might be made to rotate at least a bit or maybe adjust the loops to favor both NE and E? K4IQJ's talk indicated it could be interesting to try 2 or more in an array. 2 might not be too tough here but first I want to see one work to know I can get some help on 80 and 160 meter bands. As usual my problem on both those bands is hearing the weak ones. Wanting to do better this year in the 160 CQ SSB contest in late February.(always) Also wondered if these can be mounted on the roof of a metal building like my large garage? Think they need to be just above ground though. Terry KI7M _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector