My HF dipole antenna for the IC-705 has been hanging very low for quite a while. Even then my 5W (mostly CW) challenge for the time of the year is on track.
Yesterday I made an effort to raise the feed point for the "inverted V"from 3.5m to just over 6m, just at the top of the largest apple tree in my garden. It can be brought higher, but for now it stays there, because some of the wires are somewhat entangled in the branches of the tree, and I have not yet un-tangled them.
The antenna is a Diamond make, 5-band dipole with one branch for 10 and 20m, and the other for 15 - 40 - 80m. It is likely that I can add 30m, maybe even 60m to this antenna, as I have some coils from a previous antenna. But this will be for later.
The result? It may be too early to say, but tests yesterday indicate more band noise on some bands.
First of all, the resonance frequencies are a bit high on the bands, mostly in the SSB parts of the bands, so the antenna is too short. I will have to "cut on" some wire (yes, I know, add a bit of wire, but I couldn't help playing with the words)
10m has not done too much, neither has 15m.
On 20m I have had clearly better signals, and it looks like more stations than before are coming back to my calls.
On 40m the band noise is clearly higher, as are the signals. Same for 80m. Some CQ calls on 80m gave a QSO to SP3CW last night.
This concludes the first stage of my antenna maintenance and improvement work, there is a lot more to do.
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