Z11Pro Tuner - Portable Antenna
I am set up at my Dad's place for the week. All this week I have job training out of town and I will have less drive time and miles every day from here instead of home. So, of course I brought a radio with me!
I installed a wire through the outside wall last year to the faucet (out my ground wire hole from when I had a station set up here before, at one point in time there was a ground rod out there). There is less than 10' of wire. I use this as my counterpoise. After all, there is no better ground than solid copper - and copper water pipe offers that. If I used a ground rod I would have a ground, but not a counterpoise.
The antenna is my random wire. Towards the end of last year I set up this antenna. Before then I used my tiny magnet wire, which I never had a problem with because I was only set up for a couple days over a weekend or so. However, I replaced that with my stainless steel Surflon leader wire (.015", 10lb test). This has worked fabulously - it is much stronger than the magnet wire.
However, putting it back up today was an issue. It got caught on a branch. I got the support line (15lb test mono fishing line) through the tree fine. When I started hauling up the antenna wire it got snagged. When I got it snagged I went to the antenna side and tried to pull it backwards - back out of the tree. Well, the antenna broke. So I went to the other side to try and pull it through again. This time the fishing line broke. I can't win.
My antenna is several feet shorter than it was originally. My guess is I lost about 10' of wire. I can't see the wire or the fishing line well enough to figure out where it starts and ends - it is 25' up in a tree.
So I attached the antenna wire I had left to the fishing line again and hauled that up no problem. Why couldn't it have worked the first time? I wasted a half hour with that mess... Oh well. I am on the air now!
The Z11Pro tuner is absolutely fantastic for this antenna. The tuner is over by the window where the antenna and ground wire come in. It is connected to the radio with about 20' of coax (spliced together with a low pass filter in between). Once I get the bands memorized in the tuner the recall is lightning fast. No tuning required - one click to get back to the memory setting and it's done!
I just wish I could get a wire up as high as I do here back home. Then I would get much better radio performance.
I installed a wire through the outside wall last year to the faucet (out my ground wire hole from when I had a station set up here before, at one point in time there was a ground rod out there). There is less than 10' of wire. I use this as my counterpoise. After all, there is no better ground than solid copper - and copper water pipe offers that. If I used a ground rod I would have a ground, but not a counterpoise.
The antenna is my random wire. Towards the end of last year I set up this antenna. Before then I used my tiny magnet wire, which I never had a problem with because I was only set up for a couple days over a weekend or so. However, I replaced that with my stainless steel Surflon leader wire (.015", 10lb test). This has worked fabulously - it is much stronger than the magnet wire.
However, putting it back up today was an issue. It got caught on a branch. I got the support line (15lb test mono fishing line) through the tree fine. When I started hauling up the antenna wire it got snagged. When I got it snagged I went to the antenna side and tried to pull it backwards - back out of the tree. Well, the antenna broke. So I went to the other side to try and pull it through again. This time the fishing line broke. I can't win.
My antenna is several feet shorter than it was originally. My guess is I lost about 10' of wire. I can't see the wire or the fishing line well enough to figure out where it starts and ends - it is 25' up in a tree.
So I attached the antenna wire I had left to the fishing line again and hauled that up no problem. Why couldn't it have worked the first time? I wasted a half hour with that mess... Oh well. I am on the air now!
The Z11Pro tuner is absolutely fantastic for this antenna. The tuner is over by the window where the antenna and ground wire come in. It is connected to the radio with about 20' of coax (spliced together with a low pass filter in between). Once I get the bands memorized in the tuner the recall is lightning fast. No tuning required - one click to get back to the memory setting and it's done!
I just wish I could get a wire up as high as I do here back home. Then I would get much better radio performance.
posted by Steve at
3:26 PM
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