Got home from work today and found the Alex Loop I bought from my friend Jay AJ4AY sitting in my office. So of course I shoved my dinner down my throat and headed out to the back patio with the new antenna and assorted goodies.
I got it put together pretty quickly...not to self: YOU NEED TO MAKE A STAND FOR IT
Anyway...hooked the batteries up to the K2 and then connected the antenna, and like magic I was hearing stations from 40m to 12m (10m was dead). That got me excited so back into the house for my Parkwood Paddles.
I managed to work AC4FZ down in North Carolina on 10.120 Mhz (30m) he was very loud but he could barely hear me...and I was running five whole watts. Regardless, I did a happy dance and logged my RST of 229 and moved around.
All in all I am happy with the small loop antenna. I will finish the stand for it tomorrow and drag my SWR meter out with me to make sure I have optimal output. The tuning cap is very sharp on getting locked in...most bands I had about 15 Khz of wiggle room before needing to slightly re-tune.
WX for this weekend is looking good, and I can see me and the loop heading to the park on Saturday afternoon. Thanks Jay!
Tomorrow night I have to teach a class on the Raspberry Pi SBC. So no radio.
Good morning Brian, I owned this antenna for some time and here is a link to my blog post where I mention and show a pic of the stand I used for the antenna. https://ve3wdm.blogspot.ca/2013/05/a-nice-way-to-rest-sore-back.html
ReplyDelete73,
Mike
VE3WDM