Winter Field Day - Next Weekend
Winter Field Day is next weekend! I will be participating with a few of the people I did Field Day with this past summer as well as the Ohio QSO party. It should be a good time. I don't know how competitive we will be but the food, folks, and fun will be a blast!
It is supposed to be pretty cold and snowy. That will make things interesting raising antennas and running coax. I have a few ideas I want to test out.
The first antenna I want to try is a remote tuned vertical, similar to the popular 43'. I am not sure what the length will be - whatever I decide to put together. In short it is a non-resonant "cheated" radiator loaded with my LDG Z-11pro tuner. I have a bag full of military surplus aluminum tent poles that I am going to use for it. Whatever length I toss together and can get to stand is what I will use. Though, getting stakes in for anchor points may pose an interesting challenge in frozen ground. Hopefully we won't get any real hard freezes between now and then. It is supposed to dip between 10 and 15 degrees for the low over the weekend so if I can get the antenna up before the ground becomes a rock that will be great.
I bought an LDG AT-200pro as well. It hasn't come in yet, so this weekend will be the first run for it (I hope, as long as it hits the store before first thing Saturday morning). I want to try a ladder line fed doublet with this one through my home made 1:1 balun as well as the LDG 1:1 balun. As for where the tuner will be mounted I am not sure - it may be a problem running ladder line to the rigs so I may have to drop the ladder line down from the antenna to the tuner mounted outside in a box. Though, I would like to keep the tuner at the rig so I can see how it works in relation to the Z-11pro (volume of relays clicking, speed at finding a new match, SWR fluctuation sensitivity with tuning up/down a band, etc).
Both the Z-11pro and the AT-200pro tuners are RF-sensing automatic tuners, no adjusting or button pushing required. The only caveats are you should tune with low power and for the first tune you need to let the unit "find" a match. After that it is programmed in to the tuner and you go back to that same frequency it senses that frequency and recalls the setting for it in a split second. They are really slick!
It is supposed to be pretty cold and snowy. That will make things interesting raising antennas and running coax. I have a few ideas I want to test out.
The first antenna I want to try is a remote tuned vertical, similar to the popular 43'. I am not sure what the length will be - whatever I decide to put together. In short it is a non-resonant "cheated" radiator loaded with my LDG Z-11pro tuner. I have a bag full of military surplus aluminum tent poles that I am going to use for it. Whatever length I toss together and can get to stand is what I will use. Though, getting stakes in for anchor points may pose an interesting challenge in frozen ground. Hopefully we won't get any real hard freezes between now and then. It is supposed to dip between 10 and 15 degrees for the low over the weekend so if I can get the antenna up before the ground becomes a rock that will be great.
I bought an LDG AT-200pro as well. It hasn't come in yet, so this weekend will be the first run for it (I hope, as long as it hits the store before first thing Saturday morning). I want to try a ladder line fed doublet with this one through my home made 1:1 balun as well as the LDG 1:1 balun. As for where the tuner will be mounted I am not sure - it may be a problem running ladder line to the rigs so I may have to drop the ladder line down from the antenna to the tuner mounted outside in a box. Though, I would like to keep the tuner at the rig so I can see how it works in relation to the Z-11pro (volume of relays clicking, speed at finding a new match, SWR fluctuation sensitivity with tuning up/down a band, etc).
Both the Z-11pro and the AT-200pro tuners are RF-sensing automatic tuners, no adjusting or button pushing required. The only caveats are you should tune with low power and for the first tune you need to let the unit "find" a match. After that it is programmed in to the tuner and you go back to that same frequency it senses that frequency and recalls the setting for it in a split second. They are really slick!
posted by Steve at
8:04 PM
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