What a Mess. Projects.

 Yes, a literal mess.

The whole house has gradually become so messy that I have trouble finding space for a guest. Yes, that kind of mess.

So now the huge project is getting it pushed out. This may take some time, but in between there are a few radio related projects I want to get started, so I started making space in the electronics' lab.

While everything else in that small room is a total (well, not total, but still..., the workbench surface is now mainly visible, and I can access some test equipment and tools. It's still a long way to order, but slightly less chaos.

Now for some projects:

Antennas.

In freezing temperatures and snow outside? No, not for me. When the weather gets warmer and better again, there is still several antenna projects, as my antenna system has been deteriorating for a while.

I am glad I got my 23cm vertical up and running in a decent way, with a preamp at the antenna. It's working well in most directions, there are still some poor directions. 

A rotatable horizontal directional antenna is in the plan for better weather conditions. Some preparations are needed, so I will get there, probably in the spring.

23cm.

I can hear more stations than can hear me. I think this is due to my use of the preamp near the antenna, almost no one else around here does that with their verticals, just using an existing cable and possibly a triplexer. A quite lossy system to work with. So what do I do? Build a PA.

23cm Power Amplifier.

I got a linear amplifier built with 4 power modules. It is supposed to deliver about 50W, although I would not try that with a mode like FT8 (or other digital modes). I will need to build a coax relay system and more importantly, a sequencer, so I can avoid blowing up the preamp.

When that system is up and running, I will focus on another amplifier, running 40-50W, but for FM only.

I found a module in China, that has been used for sweeper jammers, a power amplifier covering 1200-1300MHz, with a nominal 50W output with about 10mW drive, quite some gain there. The module has no cooling, so some external cooling is mandatory.

This module requires a more elaborate sequencing procedure, as the output needs to be connected to a correct load before even applying supply voltage (28V). Initially all this will be indoors, but it could be mast mounted at a later stage. Ughh! Weather proofing needed, so maybe not ;)

QO-100 Uplink Power Amplifier.

My uplink system for the QO-100 satellite broke a while ago, the power amplifier blew at some experiments, so I need two things:

- repair the amplifier I had, if I can find the IC or transistor.

Before that I will be testing a 13cm PA module from SG Lab in Bulgaria.

This is my test setup. The mechanical part will come later.

This PA should deliver 15-20W (enough for the narrow band uplink) with a max drive of 40mW.

I intend to use my IC-905 directly on 2400MHz As this transceiver has a 2W output maximum, I will mount a 10dB attenuator, followed by a 6db attenuator at the inout of the PA, and then run the TRX at 80% output power. I don't want a power spike from the TRX to ruin the PA.

No relays are needed, as the PA has a built-in RF-VOX circuit with delay, not for the test. There is a PTT output from the IC-905, so that can be used in a permanent setup.

A Bit of Antenna Maintenance.

 There was a solid wind blowing from the East this morning.

Looking out at my rather heavy (and high wind load) R6000 antenna, it was swaying quite a lot in the wind. The top moved 1/2 to 1 meter.

A quick check showed one guy wire to  slack. 

Yes, I got a small step ladder, as I could grab the lower end of the wire from there, and added some stronger guy wire from that point.

The antenna is now rather steady in the wind, as the other guy wires are now quite tight.

There will have to be more maintenance next year, but the antenna should be okay for the winter season.

The R6000 has also lost a bit of its "radials", but as it is a half wave vertical (10-12-15-17-20m), it will work okay-ish for the winter season. I will order spare parts so I should have them before the spring antenna work begins.

Next, I will have to add new guy wires to my 10m EFHW, as the old ones are gone by now It does stand steady at the moment, but I should take no chances, as it's mounted at the gable of the long shed.

23cm Quick Test. No Success Yet.

Today I made a few simple experiments on 23cm with a local radio amateur, OZ2KC, Kent.

Just a simple transmit and receive test with a handheld radio, first in the house here. Nothing heard.

Then a walk in the park ... er ... garden, still nothing with the rubber antenna on the handheld.

Then finding the X-5000 antenna, a 1.8m vertical with something like 10dB gain, still with no success.

Suspecting the sensitivity of the handheld was poor I tried using the AR8200 handheld scanner, same result.

Admitted, the vertical antenna was only held as high as I could with the hand, so just above 2m at the feed point, so far from ideal. 

We also tried with my "local activity antenna" a 1m long vertical for 2m/70cm, maybe 23cm. The cable on this antenna is quite long and lossy, so nothing heard there, either. Not even with the (supposedly) more sensitive receiver in the IC910.

More tests are in order. Today's tests were quick, as the outdoor temperature is a bit too cold for extended outdoor tests. As soon as I can get away with it I might find space for another antenna system, mounted a bit higher, and wit lower loss cable, and also a receiver preamplifier. Now I want to be able to hear something on 23cm. There is also a local beacon 26km away, but "hidden" behind some hills. Yes the other factor is cross polarization loss, but a (rotatable) horizontal antenna is also in my thoughts.

At least I do have a local test partner for 23cm, so I will get it up and running, likely sometime in the spring.

This Year's Challenge. Small and Mini Projects. And Antennas.

This year, as opposed to last year, I have the intention to do some more building and construction activities. Last year was the year of 365 QSOs with 5W, later 365 with just 5W and solar power.

This year is more about getting some physical things done. This does not mean that I will not do much operation. Especially as propagation is among my great interests.

My antennas need an overhaul, and an update. At the moment I have:

For HF: R6000 for 10,12,15,17 and 20m (6m usable for some monitoring). Then a 5 band dipole, 10,15,20,40,80m, passable on 4 and 6m. Also a 30m long wire antenna with some limited counterpoise. This is passable for all HF bands and barely usable for 6 and 4m, and should be usable if I want to listen on 8m (40MHz). a 1/2 wave antenna for 10-11m is OK.

For VHF/UHF I have the V-2000 vertical from diamond running 50, 144 and 432MHz. A cable is running into the shack to a triplexer, running up to 3 different radios. A short (1m long) dual or triband antenna is used for monitoring 2m and 70cm, and a clover leaf ("Big Wheel")  for 2m. My 4m vertical is not standing upright at the moment, so it is not very useful.

This year I want to get up and running on a few more bands/modes. That requires new antennas and some kind of rotating functionality.

For 2m I want to do some more SSB/CW etc. (DX) activity. The 4 element yagi mentioned in an earlier post should do that.

For 70cm I also want to add DX activity. The 11 (really 8) element yagi is intended for that.

23cm: I have had some activity on that band a few decades ago, and because there is an activity group active now on this band I want to get some activity going again, this time with better equipment than I had back then. The 16 element yagi is intended for that.

I am (a bit) active on the QO100 geostationary satellite, transmitting on 13cm and receiving on 3cm.

I want to become active  with terrestrial on those bands, even if it will be with small antennas form home. Those are more directional than the VHF/UHF antennas, and need to be rotated as well.

I suspect that some portable operation from hilltops will be good for the microwave bands (above 1GHz), as I have obstructions in several directions, so range is a bit limited. This means that both a home station and some portable equipment is needed. I am building up my stock of equipment and antennas, and no, I do not expect to finish all of it this year.

In any case I want to be able to extend the number of bands where I have made at least one QSO. In this case we are talking about 2400MHz and 10GHz, and maybe later on the two bands in the other end of the spectrum, 630m and 2200m.

Then there are the small projects and mini projects, I have the goal of making at least one or two of those every month, as they are limited in scope.

One (two) of the somewhat larger projects are about assembling two QCX+ kits I have, one for 20m and one for 60m. Those are 5W CW transceivers, and should provide much fun in the future.

Mini project #4B: Small 70cm Flexa Yagi, and Some Thoughts on the Higher Frequencies.

When I purchased the small Flexa Yagi antennas some time ago it was the intention to make a compact, not too visible antenna system for 2m/70cm/23cm SSB/CW etc operation. At the time I had chemo therapy, so everything went too slowly, and the project almost died.

This project has now been resurrected, and I got the 3 antennas assembled. 

- 4 element yagi for 144MHz

- 11 element yagi for 432MHz (strictly speaking 8 elements, as there are 3 reflectors making a reflector plane).

- 16 element yagi for 1296MHz

The Flexa antennas have very thin steel elements (and a not too heavy boom), reducing the visual impact of the antennas, as I wanted

All these antennas are made for mounting in front of the mast, i.e. "behind" the reflector, so the mast will not interfere with the function of the antenna by blocking part of the elements, especially on the higher frequencies.

Having all antennas front mounted will create an imbalance of the load on the rotator, so I am thinking of making a compromise here: Mounting the largest antenna (the 4 el. for 2m) on one side of the mast, then mount the 70 and 23cm antenna in the opposite direction. This will make the operation a bit more cumbersome, but I think it can be done.

I may add a Moxon Rectangle for 4 and 6m to the system. This is a rather small antenna and will not add significantly to the visual impact.

Further, some small antennas for the 2400MHz and 10GHz band are expected to be added. No parabolic dish there, just some tiny yagi or patch antenna for 2400 and a small horn antenna with a transverter for 10GHz. This is for later, but initially a LNB (frequency stabilized), maybe with a small horn extension will be mounted for 10GHz monitoring purposes.

I will need to mount this on a rotator. No need for a heavy duty one, so I am looking into options.

I intend to mount the system on top of an old apple tree where I have some antennas already.

For SSB/CW (DX) work I have had a clover leaf ("Big Wheel") antenna mounted right on the top of the tree, essentially invisible, and it has provided some DX on 2m.

What kind of performance can I expect from this system.

On 2m, the stated gain of the 4 el. antenna is 7.6dBd. This may be exaggerated, but compared to the old clover leaf antenna I expect to mount the 4 el. 2-3m higher and less obstructed, so I would expect a performance improvement of approximately 10dB over the clover leaf antenna. With a good preamp at the antenna, and also an added PA in the shack I should have a solid performance boost, compared to the current system.

On 70cm, with a stated gain of 10.2dBd the system is a very modest, but some DX activity should be possible.

On 23cm, with a stated gain of 14.2dB (exaggerated?) I would expect some interesting occasional DX activity, especially if a preamp and a PA (25W?) is mounted near the antenna.

On 13cm this system will just be playing around , maybe with some interesting DX in the best directions I have, but I do not expect much there. 

On 3cm  the system is very modest. I may be fortunate enough to make some DX under excellent tropo conditions, and possibly some rain scatter QSOs. 

For the higher (microwave) bands some hilltop operation is probably a much better option, but the capability of some modest home operation is good to have.

Mini Project #4a: 16 element Flexa Yagi for 23cm.

A while ago I purchased a front-mast mounted yagi antenna for 23cm.

This is a 16 element yagi with a  stated gain of 14dBd. We shall see, but it is much better than no antenna at all ;)

Today I got that one assembled.

Next: a corresponding 70cm antenna for front mast mounting.

Mini Project #4. 4 El. Yagi For 2m.

 A while ago I purchased the Flexa Yagi 4 element antenna for 2m. 

At the time I purchased it I did not have sufficient strength in the fingers, and  the precision to do the job, due to having chemo therapy. That is now much less of a problem, though there are some side effects of that left over. Yes, I did not ask for assistance, as I like to do most of my stuff myself.

This one is designed for being mounted in front of the mast, so the mast would be behind the reflector. This allows the antenna to be mounted for horizontal or in the vertical polarization.

Another advantage is that this antenna has very thin steel elements, so only the boom is clearly visible from the ground. This is part of my low-visibility antenna system.

For my use I have mounted the mast clamp between the reflector and the feed element.

The FX 205V has a claimed gain of 7.6dBd. That may be a bit on the high side, but let us estimate the gain to be above 6dBd, and I will be satisfied.

I have used a "Big Wheel" or "Clover leaf" omnidirectional antenna for a while. It has been mounted right in the to of an apple tree, and I did make a bit of DX on 2m with that one. Ukraine was one of them.

In order to get the full benefit of this antenna I need to mount it on a rotator. That will not happen until the weather is much better, some time in the spring. When that happens, the small Yagi will likely be mounted 2-3m higher than the clover leaf antenna, and due to the height difference and the fact that the Yagi will be in the clear, I would expect signals to improve significantly on 2m, probably in the order of 10dB.

What next?

Maybe the 23cm Flexa Yagi I have had lying in the box for quite a while Then it will be ready, even if I cannot mount it yet.

30m Wire Antenna Update.

 The 30m long piece of wire has found its place for a while.

The feed point is placed 2m high at the end of the out-house under an apple tree. It then goes up through the tree and lead to the second apple tree - the largest in the garden, then down to a smaller tree where the end is attached. Most of the wire is about 5m above ground, not particularly high, but definitely better than 1m above ground. 

The antenna now has a counterpoise added, about 50m of wire, about 2m above ground (and lower).

The system works nicely on 30m, and does not need a tuner when operating from 80 - 6m. On the resonant bands of the dipole, the dipole mostly works better, but on 20m in particular the wire gives signal mostly equal to the dipole. On 30m the dipole is useless, as it is not resonant at all, and the wire works nicely. A TZ station (Mali) was coming in nicely with up to S9 signals, but 5W was (as expected) not sufficient to break the pile -up. I will have to try again when signals are good, and less stations are calling.

The present set-up of antennas and transceivers for the 80 - 4m bands is now as follows.

IC-705:  Wire antenna, workable on all bands 80m - 6m.

IC-7300: Dipole working on 4,6,10,15,20,40,80m

IC-7600: The old R-6000 antenna running 10-12-15-17-20m, and the 6m part of the V-2000 antenna.

IC-7100: A vertical Sirio half wave antenna for 4m, mostly used for the local FM traffic.

New Antenna Experiment: 30m Wire.

 Today I made the initial test of the 30m long antenna wire I had lying around. I located a low power (probably absolutely max power 100W) 9:1 UN-UN.

I found a free cable end at the end of the out-house, and strung the wire from there to the low end of the garden. Both ends are only about 2m above ground, and the centre is sagging, so it is only about one meter above ground. There is a lot of room for improvements. The centre should be mounted near the centre of the dipole, i.e. about 5 - 6m above ground, and the end(s) should be higher up as well.

This antenna is right now connected to the IC-705 with about 15m RG-58 cable. Not the best in the world, but for the low frequencies it will work. Surprising that the OZ7IGY beacon is clearly audible on 2m and 70cm, despite the low height. 

The dipole cannot operate on 30m, so the 30m band was tested. A bit of a surprise, a QSO with a French station was easy, even running the 5W from the IC-705.

For now the wire antenna is connected to the '705, and some improvements are in my plans:

- mounting the antenna higher up

- adding some "radials", a 50m long piece, and a 10m long one, to see if the 160m band can be reached with a decent SWR. Right now the SWR is a bit up-and-down across the HF bands, starting being low-ish around 3.5MHz.

- adding a common mode choke at the feed point, so I can avoid RF running into the shack (and some of the noise being picked up on the outside of the cable).

If the weather permits, some of this will happen tomorrow, as well as weather proofing the setup.

The dipole is now connected to the IC-7300, and can be used on 4-6-10-12-15-17-20-40-80m, using the built-in tuner on some bands. At the moment the '7300 has been set to 5W out on the HF bands, but there is, of course some reserve if I *really* want to work a station - new country or the like.

I am expecting some packages tomorrow, so I can start improving the solar power setup. I expect to add the IC-7300 as one more load for the solar power setup, so in essence the "mainly QRP" setup will running on solar only.

HF Dipole Improved.

 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.

Update On the QRP Challenge.

 Almost every day I have been working QSOs with the 5W output CW, mostly from the IC-705. QSOs have been made on 10-12-15-17-20-40-80m.

Now we wait for 4 and 6m to open - and 2m in the summer Es season. I suspect that I will mostly run more power on those bands, but some 5W work will be tested in the big openings.

New antennas are needed, so I can include 30-60-160m. Initially I expect to make and use a 30m vertical 1/4 wave GP, usable on 30-10-6-4m, probably good enough to listen on 8m (40MHz).

Next antenna will probably be an EFHW wire antenna for 80m. That should work on all HF bands except 60m, and with an extension coil it should be extended to work on 160m. I do have the transformer (49:1), it must be built into a box, but then it should be ready for deployment when the weather gets a bit warmer. Yes, I am waiting for spring weather. It may be variable, but I think I can find some warm and dry spells to play with antennas.

We have got more sunspots than I have seen in several years, and we are getting more daylight, so the HF propagation is already better than I have seen it in years. Good times for HF QRP operation ...

The Higher HF Bands Are Good Again.

 Now that we have more daylight in my area (55 deg. N), the propagation on the higher HF bands is improving again.
On top of this, the solar flux numbers have been above 100 for several weeks, with very few days below 100 SFU, I is now about 60 days ago we had no sunspots visible. Cycle 25 has started in earnest.

In my 5W challenge I have now had QSOs on the 10-12-15-17-20-40, and 80m bands.

Testing the SWR with my 5-band dipole showed that it is also useful  for a few more bands than the design frequencies - 10-15-20-40-80m. The dipole can operate on 4-6-12 and 17m. SWR is too high on 30 and 60m, and far too high on 160m. But not bad to be able to operate 9 bands on a 5-band antenna. This may change when I get the feed point higher up, as it is less than 4m above ground. I will have to improve the HF/MF antenna system, so I can include the remaining bands, and maybe try out the 630m band, or the 2200m band.

Last night I made what I refer to as a real CW QSO on 80m. F6BBQ with much more exchange than calls and report. Nice and moderate tempo, perfect for my modest CW capabilities. 

As it is right now, I am using the IC-705 for all the 5W QSOs. When I add an antenna for 30m (planned as a 1/4 wave ground plane), that should be usable on 10m (possibly with a tuner), 6m and 4m on thr 3rd, 5th and 7th harmonic. Not ideal, but probably slightly better than the performance of the low dipole on 10-6-4m, until I can get my 4-6m Moxon rectangle assembled and mounted.

The 30m vertical could be expanded to other bands with parallel (band) elements. This antenna would most likely be used with the IC-7300, with higher power on 4 and 6m, and likely set to 5W on the HF bands. Spring is allowed to begin, but I will probably have to wait another month here.

Another Personal Challenge. QRP.

This year I will make an attempt to get 365 QSOs in the log, all with just 5W output or less - no matter the band.

The most used transceiver is likely to be the IC-705, but other transceivers, either with a 5W power limit or higher power transceivers set to 5W out may be used. e.g. I intend to get the IC-7300 up and running with a 30m vertical. This antenna will also work on 10-6-4m, so I can get some summer sporadic E, and maybe some other band activity going. 

This requires me to build a new vertical. It will be a ground mounted 30m quarter wave with a good amount of shorter radials on the ground. Other bands in between may also be added with extra (wire elements), e.g. 20, 17 and 15m.

Update of "Shack Corner". Mostly Operational Again.

First stage of the "shack corner" update is done. 

I can now slide the desktop plate in and out, so I can get better access to radios and cables behind the radios. The plate itself is 200x60cm, but part of it slides between shelves, so I have about 140x60cm of desktop available.

The shack computer, a Raspberry Pi 4 (8GB RAM) is set up with a 1080p monitor, so I have the log program running again. The log program is, at the moment, storing all (digitally entered) logs, with the exception of the log for QO-100. The log program cannot yet handle that.

There will be more computing there, I want to get some FT8 monitoring up and running again, on different bands. Some more Raspberry Pi's are available for this, and I expect (long term) to be running those remote controlled from the main computer/screen (if the Raspi4/8GB can handle the load).

The QO-100 setup is up and running again, including a manipulator keyer connected to the radio, so I can run SSB/CW on the satellite.

Newly built: Long ago I had made my own memory keyer, capable of being programmed from a straight key. It had several switching arrangements, but it is 40 years old, so I pulled out the electronics of it and just connected a few of the toggle switches. The switch box can now handle 4 radios - one at a time, using 3 toggle switches. In addition, the switch box has 2 inputs in parallel, one for the memory keyer, and one for a straight key. I have a Swedish Key that works very nicely for hand keying.

I got some cables made, and 4 radios are connected:

- IC-7600 connected to the 6m part of my 6/2/70 vertical (V-2000) and my R-6000 for 10/12/15/17/20m.

- IC-7300 connected to my low hanging multi-dipole, runnnig 80/40/20/15/10/6/4m. Not very good on 6 and 4, but a poor antenna is better than none.

- IC-7100 connected to a power amplifier and the 2m Big Wheel antenna.

- IC-703 connected to a 10m vertical.

The HF PA is up on the shelves again, but still needs to be connected - I am still considering which radio to connect ...

Receive antennas and receivers still need to be connected, but it is good to be able to operate again, and to have the soldering iron in use again.

Home Antenna Considerations, Part 1.

 I am doing some considerations on a re-design of my antennas in and around the house. Right now I have a more or less functioning system, because during the pandemic I have not had the option of people coming to assist in antenna installations. 

The antenna system was due some maintenance the last 2 years, so now is probably the time to get started again.

This is my existing antenna system:

1) RX-ant:

- Active Mini-whip: 10kHz - 25MHz (needs some distribution/filter circuit(s))

- Indoor loop: 500kHz - 30MHz (lower than 500kHz w/amplification?)(needs distribution/filters)

- Loop on ground (30 - 160m, maybe MW/NDB bands w/ amplification?) (needs distribution/filters)

2) TRX-ant:

- R6000 (10 - 20m) (6m poor(RX only?)). In working order, but guy wires need to be replaced.

- Low 5B dipole (10-15-20-40-80m). Not very efficient due to the low height.

- V2000 (6/2m/70cm vertical). This is in working order.

- Corner vertical (mounted at the corner of the garden). This antenna has lost the top. I will have to check if the telescopic fiberglass mast has partly collapsed, or if it is broken. Originally this antenna worked in varying degrees on 160 - 30m, but it has certainly lost the 160m capability. Most definitely needs maintenance or re-design.

- Big Wheel, 2m (could possibly do 70cm) Omnidirectional, horizontal polarisation. This is generally in working order, but in rainy conditions it seems to deteriorate. Probably leaking, so needs maintenance.

- 10m 1/2 wave antenna. In working order.

- Low 2m/70cm vertical w/lossy cable. 

I am trying to make the antenna system as unobtrusive as possible, still with the functionality I want, so here are some requirements:

TRX Operation possible on following bands:

- preferably a possibility og making at least one QSO on 2200 and 630m. This may be tricky, but should be tested.

- 10 - 160m, reasonably well.

- 10m good (minimum as good as a vertical 1/2 wave).

- 4/6m needs to be improved (probably with Moxon, capable of running more power)

- 2m added gain, horizontal

- 70cm horizontal gain

- 23cm vertical and horizontal w/ some gain

- 13cm vertical and horizontal w/ some gain

- 9cm ???

- 6cm (maybe "14dB" patch array)

- 3cm 15/17dB horn or small (35cm?) dish

- probably some antennas should be capable of more than one band.

Diverse RX antennas: 

- Mini-Whip (2 pcs?). Will need distribution/filters

- Indoor WB loops for MW/HF. Will need distribution/filters

- Outdoor WB loop for MW/HF. Will need distribution/filters

- Outdoor loop for MF/LF(/VLF?). Will need distribution/filters

- Loop on ground antenna for MF/low HF bands. Will need distribution/filters

- other possible RX antennas may be considered, e.g. 4/6/10m RX antenna, 137/145/250MHz, 432MHz, 23/13/3cm monitor antennas.

I do have some ideas, but I think I will have to take yet another look at the garden and assess the possible solutions, so this is all for today.

Week End Activity, P.3: Loop on Ground Receive Antenna Experiment.

 The loop antenna adventure continues.

This time I revised the Loop on Ground (LoG) setup.

Some time ago I tried out a LoG made with field telephone cable. This cable is mostly made of steel wires, but with a few strands of tinned copper wire, in a 4x5m configuration. Probably not the best material for antennas, and the results were disappointing, and the experiment was halted. Now it continues.

After cutting the grass (first time this year, so it took some effort) I found some thin wire to lay down. It may be replaced with weatherproof wire later, but I got to test the system, this time the wire is a bit longer, the configuration is about 5x8m, so the highest band expected to work properly is 30m. I use pegs to hold down the wire, the type used to hold wires for robotic lawn mowers.

The box with the transformer had to be repaired, too, one of the transformer wires had disconnected since I last made the experiment.

I am testing with the IC-7600. Here are the first test results:

Initially the noise level all over the bands was poor, but winding part of the cable a round a ferrite rod near the radio improved that. A better common mode choke is desirable. Now I need even more ferrite (toroids and other stuff) for reducing RFI all over the house.

MW/LW sounds quite noisy and with low S/N reception. Not as good as the small NCPL (w/amplifier at the radio), and certainly not as good as the Mini-Whip.

160m sounds OK-ish with no preamp, not spectacular

80m sounds good, signals weaker than on the low hanging dipole, but noise lower, too. Almost equal, but I suspect that the 

60m sounds good, not spectacular, looks like it is a bit noisier than the dipole (using Shannon Volmet and FT8 as test signals), but then again, the dipole is not resonant on 60m.

40m weaker than the dipole, but sounds quite good. Comparable S/N.

30m looks quite sensitive, no resonant antenna to compare with yet, but it sounds like a decent receive antenna

20m: Looks like S/N is worse than the R6000. No surprise, as the Loop on Ground is too large for 20m

I suspect that the best band for this antenna will be 80m. 40/60/160 are probably OK with a better set of common mode chokes at antenna and radio.

On all the bands the noise floor of the receiver increased when the antenna was connected, so the IC-7600 receiver is sufficiently sensitive on all the bands I intend to use it for. It should also prove a decent receive antenna for use from 1.6 - 12MHz. I think I shall keep it and probably replace the wire, then get it closer to the ground, maybe a few cm under ground level. With some weatherproofing this should prove an interesting low band receive antenna in the winter season.

Amplified RX Loop Test and a Little Outdoor Antenna Work.

 This week end I have been active with antenna work.

Small Receiving Loop.

The first was a test using a low cost Chinese amplifier for the NCPL (loop).

The amplifier is actually "overkill", stated gain/bandwidth is 32dB/1-2000MHz. Not surprising, the gain is too high, both attenuators are in action on the FRG-100 receiver, and the base noise level (not interference), especially on 5-10MHz, is still very high.

Considering that the antenna is till tested indoors in the noise field I would expect things to improve when the antenna (properly weather proofed) is placed outdoors, but there is still one problem. The high gain causes intermodulation, maybe also cross modulation. I have not tested this, but in addition it is possible that the amplifier is oscillating in the UHF range. 

Which signals cause the intermod etc? I suspect it can be the MW broadcast band, but given the bandwith/gain of the amplifier it could be FM broadcast stations, too.

As I suspected this type of amplifier is simply unsuitable for such low frequencies, but I had to test it.

A simple 2 transistor with negative feedback is in my thoughts, along with a pre-selector. N1KPR has published a simple design that could be made on simple perf-board. 

Outdoor antennas.

The weather was pleasantly warm today, so a little outdoor antenna work was done. Since I do it all alone things may take a bit longer.

First outdoor thing was removing the lowered 6m half wave vertical antenna. There was a bit of rust, so the WD-40 was in action. This antenna was mounted on a satellite dish mount on the lawn, so this is now freed for other antennas. In addition, the cable was freed as well, and put to good use.

The 5 band dipole (10-15-20-40-80) had been connected together with the 4m vertical (now partly lowered) with a HF/VHF diplexer, which this was removed. The dipole is now connected to the old 6m antenna cable. Testing from indoors, the dipole/cable system seems capable of operating on 6m and 4m, so for the moment the dipole is used for 4m, because the 6m reception is quite noisy. The performance is expected to be quite poor on 4 and 6m, but until a better solution is available this will have to do.

The (partly taken down) 4m antenna is now connected to the old cable, running indoors, so a very limited 4m reception is possible, until another 4m(6/10/30m) antenna can be tested. At the moment only a transceiver capable of running a repeater is connected.

For now the 4m will be run on the IC-7300 with the dipole, and 6m on the IC-7600 with the V-2000 vertical.

It looks like the weather will be quite good tomorrow, too, so I may find time for more antenna work.

4m Antenna System Temporarily Out of Order

 Because I have the intention to replace my 4m vertical with a multiband vertical the antenna has been partly taken down.The mast is standing/lying in about a 45 deg. angle, so while it is connected, it is useless right now. When the weather permits I will seek to change that situation.

Initially I should test a set-up of a 30m vertical (GP) which will resonate on 30, 50 and 70MHz. This could, initially (tor testing) be set next to the tree where the old 4m antenna is now quite useless.

As soon as the weather permits this is the next stage of outdoor antenna experiments.

Beginning of the Sporadic E Season.

Monitoring FT8 signals on 10m has shown me two things:

1) F2 propagation is slowly starting after the deep solar minimum. I regularly detect signals form South America, a bit of the Middle East and a a few stations from Oceania, mainly Indonesian stations. I am looking forward to be able to work stations world wide with CW (and maybe SSB) on 10m, maybe even with QRP.

2) Most days I detect signals from all over Europe, mostly at distances of more than 1200km. Soon I will have to change the monitoring to 6m and maybe 4m. 

At the same time I am trying to reduce the visual impact of my antenna system as much as possible.

Last year I had separate vertical antennas for 6m, 4m and 10m. Not very good for low visual impact. This year I am planning to test an unusual antenna for multiband use: A 10MHz ground plane antenna. This will have a low impedance resonance on 30 (workable on 28MHz with a tuner), 50 and 70MHz, with some low angle radiation. What remains to be seen is whether this will work well for 6 and 4m, if it does I will keep that as a vertical for 4 bands. With a frequency multiplexer I should be able to use the antenna simultaneously for all 4 bands. I have a diplexer separating HF and VHF, so that is a start. But before I can do this I will have to dismantle my separate 4m vertical, and that is too difficult without assistance. I hope that the COVID restrictions will ease sufficiently for that to be possible, very soon, so I do not miss too much of the Es season.

There is more antenna maintenance needed, but this has a rather high priority.

I have some ideas for making a very modest rotatable antenna system for 6/4/2m and 70/23/13/3cm. For 3cm DX I know I will need something larger, but I have to start somewhere. More on this project later.