I've been dealing with a lot of noise at my QTH. I suspect it is power line noise, but it seems to be worst on 40m. My little DS-1, while cute and while it works, I'm not sure how *well* it actually works. So finally broke down and built another dipole, this time taller and for 20m.
I somehow ended up with an extendable painter's pole, and thought that would work nicely. I 3d printed an end-cap to screw onto it, and 3d printed a little dipole middle piece to hold those parts. Didn't use any balun or anything. Oversized the wire a good bit and then folded it back while measuring with the NanoVNA until I had a decent SWR in the middle of the 20m band. Am using the umbrella hole in our little iron garden table (also something we ended up with for free) to hold it up.
I don't know if it was the higher dipole or band conditions, but achieved a goal of getting to both Australia and the UK! Woohoo!
Edit: Also was heard in Japan on FT8!!! (Didn't manage to work anyone on FT8, but was picked up a bunch of places)
Edit 2: But I did manage an FT8 QSO with XE2AFL in Mexico! Woohoo!
No comments:
Post a Comment