From owner-qrp-l@Lehigh.EDU Mon Mar 22 09:11:33 1999 Received: from fidoii.CC.lehigh.EDU (fidoii.CC.lehigh.EDU [128.180.1.4]) by oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA29402 for ; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 09:11:32 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:3946 "HELO Lehigh.EDU" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED") by fidoii.cc.Lehigh.EDU with SMTP id <53538-30070>; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 09:08:42 -0500 Received: from nss4.CC.Lehigh.EDU ([128.180.1.13]:3288 "EHLO nss4.cc.Lehigh.EDU" ident: "IDENT-NOT-QUERIED") by fidoii.cc.Lehigh.EDU with ESMTP id <53381-29556>; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 09:07:30 -0500 Received: from mail.tcjc.cc.tx.us (mail.tccd.net [204.65.240.8] (may be forged)) by nss4.cc.Lehigh.EDU (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA29782 for ; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 09:07:26 -0500 Received: from [10.4.13.143] (tccd243-148.tccd.net [204.65.243.148]) by mail.tcjc.cc.tx.us (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA00133 for ; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 08:07:11 -0600 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 08:07:00 -0500 Reply-To: w5tb@SoftHome.net Sender: owner-qrp-l@Lehigh.EDU Precedence: bulk From: W5TB To: "Low Power Amateur Radio Discussion" Subject: Portable Antenna Experiments - what worked for me Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: w5tb@pop.SoftHome.net X-Orcpt: rfc822;qrp-l@fidoii.CC.Lehigh.EDU X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN Status: RO Highest gang, I just returned from a three day camping trip to Arkansas. I was camped on the banks of the Cossatot River in southwestern Arkansas along with my XYL and Pup Dog Maggie in our Starcraft tent Trailer -- really 'roughing it' :-) . I brought along the Ten Tec Scout (modified for QRP - a Scout 555.5 :-) , the MFJ 971 QRP antenna tuner, a 1/2 G5RV, some wire, bannana plugs, and some very cheap radio shack twinlead to amuse myself. I made 51 QSOs during the trip, many qrp-qrp, others with FISTS and some quick ones with County Hunters -- here are the results of what worked for me during my highly unscientific antenna experiments. FWIW - Your mileage may vary. Slingshot Launcher. http://www.natworld.com/ars/pages/back_issues/0698_text/hylaunch.html I brought along a crossman slingshot and a fishing reel. Fortune smiles on QRPers and while walking the pup dog before erecting the first antenna I came across a plastic casting plug -- 2" long and tear drop shaped. Perfect for attaching to the reel and once it was over a branch it snaked down easily (rarely snagging) and had an opening at the bottom where I could attach a line to pull back over the limb. This setup allowed me to put a line over a branch 50+ feet up and worked perfectly -- this will be a standard part of the kit from now on. I haven't mounted the reel on the slingshot yet -- just laying it on the ground worked well. Random wire vertical http://www.homeusers.prestel.co.uk/g3ycc/rwv.htm I used three pieces of wire 33' long -- one vertical into QRP friendly tree and two as radials. All three wires held in place with a single tent peg at base of vertical section and each radial tied to a ten peg at the far end - 180 degrees apart. Feed line was 20 feet of the el cheapo 300 ohm twinlead. This antenna went together and up in no time and loaded easily from 40-10 meters. However, the RWV is a compromise design and not particularly efficient electrically. Although I worked a number of stations signal reports were considerably down from the G5RV - consistently 2 full s units when switching back and forth from the g5rv to the rwv. This was true for DX as well as stateside signals. Twinlead fed doublet with a 66' flattop http://www.natworld.com/ars/pages/back_issues/0698_text/ffd.html Erected as inverted vee but only about 20' up and fed with 30' of twinlead. Signals here were consistently 2 full s units above the rwv. Fed with 30' of twinlead outside the trailer it performed wonderfully from 40-10 and even though it was lower than the g5rv some sigs were stronger (it was lower and run N-S whereas the g5rv was E-W so this is very inconclusive) However when I added 20' of twinlead and snaked it into the trailer near the metal base it refused to load on 20. I suspect this has to do with the tuner and length of the lead -- It was getting dark as I erected this one, I'll experiment with it further and compare it to the g5rv. In theory there should be less loss in the line. However as stated below the G5RV was so easy to erect and feed and performed so well I may well not bother ;-) 1/2 G5RV erected as an inverted vee. http://www.cqcqcq.com/g5rv.html This was a 51' commercial version picked up at a hamfest for about $30. Fed with 75' of RG58X coax. This went up *very* easily in less than tem minutes solo with the trusty sling shot- about 45' into a pine tree at the apex and about 10' off the ground at the ends. All I can say is wow - consistently good sig reports and during many 20-30 min QSOs with QRPers and fists friends the most commonly received phrase was "solid cpy" This antenna was easy to erect and feeding the coax into the tent trailer was no problem at all -- excess was coiled on ground. If there was signal loss in the coax you'd never know it - this antenna tuned and performed like gang busters from 40-10. It will probably be the only antenna I'll bring on future tent trailer trips. Many thanks to all I worked - it was a fun trip. Highlights were the many long qrp-qrp contacts, including N3WYQ, NM3B, W8SFF, KOLG, K8FF, VE3HY, KD0CA, KB2UJI, WS0L, AF4LQ, WB2BQQ, N0TU with a "killer" QRP Mobile signal (Steve's a quick QSLer too -- his card was waiting when I got home) and V31GX who was running his 5W Index Labs rig to a sloping wire down in Belize. Who says ya gotta have high power to make contacts? My face still hurts from smiling so much ;-) t.e.d. 73 T.E. 'Doc' Drake W5TB Arlington, TX w5tb@softhome.net http://www.qsl.net/w5tb/ QRPARCI # 3252 NORCAL #1002 QRP-L #673 FISTS # 5365 ARRL Life Member