Italy and Germany - Mobile, also NVIS
I am visiting family out of town for a couple days and figured I would work some HF on the way over. It is an hour and a half drive, so there is plenty of room for some HF contacts.
I rigged up my tarheel model 200 screwdriver on the way up to Canada so my whip was bent over across the truck. I was trying to improve the NVIS performance of the antenna. I am not sure how well this setup worked because the SWR on 40 meters was pretty high. I attribute this to the fact that the whip was real close to the roof of the truck.
I was wanting to try out the same method of bending the whip over the truck for NVIS, however I wanted two more things: 1. more efficiency on 40, and 2. keeping the whip away from the roof for less interaction and lower SWR.
So I stacked a few 3/8"x24 antenna parts: two Buddipole arms (one short and one long), then the fiberglass base to a 10m hamstick, and finally my stock stainless steel 6' whip on top.
I left a zip tie on the whip from the Canada trip where I connected fishing line to hold it down. So it was pretty easy to attach the fishing line again. Only, this time I needed a LOT more. I think my whip length was around 10 feet.
My first attempt with this set up was with the spring attached to the top of the screw driver base. This didn't work - it was too floppy. So I pulled the spring out all together. The fiberglass mast and the stainless steel whip were flexible enough.
The order of the parts was the buddipole arms on the bottom, hamstick mast, and then the whip. So the whip didn't start to bend until about 7 feet up!
The total height of the antenna bent over was about a foot less than my 102" whip and extended to about the roof/windshield line in the front. This was much further from the roof than my last experiment - and the SWR was much less as a result (around 1.5:1).
When I left the house I called CQ on 7.154LSB for a while. I had VE3QY in Toronto come back to my call. He was a solid 59 and he gave me a 58 report - pretty good for a mobile station!
So I continued calling CQ on LSB. Nothing. No one replied for a long time so I gave up there. I figured I would try my luck at CW.
One more thing I will mention is I put a jack up front below the dash for my key connection. This way I don't have the key hard wired in the truck like before - I can take it out and plug it in to the FT-857D for portable work real easy. I worked on this for an hour and a half earlier last night before I left.
I went down to the bottom 25 (I like it down there now!) and scrolled around for some DX. The first station I came across was DJ6ZM in Germany. So I listened for him to finish his QSO and then I chimed in. He came right back to my call, minus a few letters. So I corrected my call "KC8QVO/M" and repeated once. He got the call that time, but not the /m, and gave me a 579 report and the rest of the usuals. So I called back to him, gave him a signal report and the rest of the usuals. I also told him I was mobiling westbound in Ohio. He picked up on the "/m" that time HI. In any event, he was in the log.
Then I was scrolling around some more. I came across IK3VUT calling CQ DX. So I called back, but someone walked all over me. I had to wait for them to finish their QSO. After that I called again. Bingo! Got him. He didn't catch the whole call sign so I had to repeat it a few times. There was a lot of QSB between us so that wasn't surprising. He did manage to copy my report and all, so that was good. He gave me a 449 and I gave him a 559. Still not too bad!
OK, so what does this "NVIS" antenna look like? Well, apparently it wasn't "NVIS" after all. I made it to Italy and Germany. The bad part - just before I got here the antenna snagged something (probably a tree, considering the area) and it broke! I had to turn around and look for it in the night.. not much fun.
I did manage to find it though. The good news is the only thing that broke was the 3/8"X24 stud that was on the bottom buddipole arm. If you can believe it - the fiberglass hamstick mast made it out with just a few scratches. I thought for sure that was shattered!
So, unfortunately, no pictures of the antenna... yet. I think I have another stud in the center console or my tool box. If I can rig it back up when I am up today I will take a picture and post back. It is pretty wicked! I might move some of the parts around, though - like swap the buddipole arms with the hamstick base. That way the arch starts that much lower. Maybe I will toss in the spring above the buddipole arms. Although - that could cause a problem with the tip of the whip being too close to the roof. We'll see.
I rigged up my tarheel model 200 screwdriver on the way up to Canada so my whip was bent over across the truck. I was trying to improve the NVIS performance of the antenna. I am not sure how well this setup worked because the SWR on 40 meters was pretty high. I attribute this to the fact that the whip was real close to the roof of the truck.
I was wanting to try out the same method of bending the whip over the truck for NVIS, however I wanted two more things: 1. more efficiency on 40, and 2. keeping the whip away from the roof for less interaction and lower SWR.
So I stacked a few 3/8"x24 antenna parts: two Buddipole arms (one short and one long), then the fiberglass base to a 10m hamstick, and finally my stock stainless steel 6' whip on top.
I left a zip tie on the whip from the Canada trip where I connected fishing line to hold it down. So it was pretty easy to attach the fishing line again. Only, this time I needed a LOT more. I think my whip length was around 10 feet.
My first attempt with this set up was with the spring attached to the top of the screw driver base. This didn't work - it was too floppy. So I pulled the spring out all together. The fiberglass mast and the stainless steel whip were flexible enough.
The order of the parts was the buddipole arms on the bottom, hamstick mast, and then the whip. So the whip didn't start to bend until about 7 feet up!
The total height of the antenna bent over was about a foot less than my 102" whip and extended to about the roof/windshield line in the front. This was much further from the roof than my last experiment - and the SWR was much less as a result (around 1.5:1).
When I left the house I called CQ on 7.154LSB for a while. I had VE3QY in Toronto come back to my call. He was a solid 59 and he gave me a 58 report - pretty good for a mobile station!
So I continued calling CQ on LSB. Nothing. No one replied for a long time so I gave up there. I figured I would try my luck at CW.
One more thing I will mention is I put a jack up front below the dash for my key connection. This way I don't have the key hard wired in the truck like before - I can take it out and plug it in to the FT-857D for portable work real easy. I worked on this for an hour and a half earlier last night before I left.
I went down to the bottom 25 (I like it down there now!) and scrolled around for some DX. The first station I came across was DJ6ZM in Germany. So I listened for him to finish his QSO and then I chimed in. He came right back to my call, minus a few letters. So I corrected my call "KC8QVO/M" and repeated once. He got the call that time, but not the /m, and gave me a 579 report and the rest of the usuals. So I called back to him, gave him a signal report and the rest of the usuals. I also told him I was mobiling westbound in Ohio. He picked up on the "/m" that time HI. In any event, he was in the log.
Then I was scrolling around some more. I came across IK3VUT calling CQ DX. So I called back, but someone walked all over me. I had to wait for them to finish their QSO. After that I called again. Bingo! Got him. He didn't catch the whole call sign so I had to repeat it a few times. There was a lot of QSB between us so that wasn't surprising. He did manage to copy my report and all, so that was good. He gave me a 449 and I gave him a 559. Still not too bad!
OK, so what does this "NVIS" antenna look like? Well, apparently it wasn't "NVIS" after all. I made it to Italy and Germany. The bad part - just before I got here the antenna snagged something (probably a tree, considering the area) and it broke! I had to turn around and look for it in the night.. not much fun.
I did manage to find it though. The good news is the only thing that broke was the 3/8"X24 stud that was on the bottom buddipole arm. If you can believe it - the fiberglass hamstick mast made it out with just a few scratches. I thought for sure that was shattered!
So, unfortunately, no pictures of the antenna... yet. I think I have another stud in the center console or my tool box. If I can rig it back up when I am up today I will take a picture and post back. It is pretty wicked! I might move some of the parts around, though - like swap the buddipole arms with the hamstick base. That way the arch starts that much lower. Maybe I will toss in the spring above the buddipole arms. Although - that could cause a problem with the tip of the whip being too close to the roof. We'll see.
posted by Steve at
2:56 AM
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