I hope to get on the net tomorrow.
I had my nephew come in today and we checked out the radio.
To my surprise I found out the radio somehow was on 20 watts instead of 100
watts.
All this time I thought I was running high power.
I still have no idea how the radio's power got turned down.
Hope to talk to you on the net.
I kind of thought at first my antennas were giving me trouble.
But it wasn't that.
Junior Lolley KG4itd
Liberty County E. C.
-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of tom behler
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 6:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: So, I'll do anything to get on 160 meters: Check this out
Well, Gary, some of this continues to be a mystery, but that is what
makes it all a bit intriguing.
My help came today, and after some systematic SWR checks, we decided to
leave well enough alone for the time being, and test things out in more
detail.
Actually, I now have two antennas up--the DXCC which is good from 40 through
10 meters, and the Carolina Windom 160 compact, which is good on 80 through
10 meters, and, with my 100-foot coax fix, now works on 160.
In about 15 minutes here, I'm going to jump on a mid-west net on 160 meters,
and see what kind of signal reports I can get.
The antenna tunes on 160 with the Tentec tuner, and my help says the rig
doesn't seem to fold back, since it likes the 1.1 to 1 SWR, but we'll see
how the thing actually performs shortly.
One thing I can say for sure is that this whole turn of events has been a
pleasant surprise to me.
Hope to talk to many of you on the blind ops net tomorrow. Maybe I'll do a
comparison between the DXCC and the Windom, to see which works best on 20
meters.
73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary Tillinghast" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: So, I'll do anything to get on 160 meters: Check this out
Hi Tom,
Your trials with your antenna reminded me of a 6m dipole antenna that we had
here. We checked the match before we put it up in the air. A sighted
friend had his antenna matcher on it and got the SWR down to 1:1. This was
about 5 ft off the ground. We moved it to the tower for more height. It
was strung between to cords to prevent grounding out. The height it was
moved to was about roof height and strung between two points. The SWR rose
up to 4:1 and we hadn't changed anything. The only thing we could figure on
what had changed was the distance from the ground. So the 6m antenna stayed
at the 5ft level and made several contacts to Fla. on it. So I appreciate
the stories of others it may get us to figure these antennas out. Merry
Christmas. Gary KB2YAA
----- Original Message -----
From: "tom behler" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 7:58 AM
Subject: Re: So, I'll do anything to get on 160 meters: Check this out
Well, Barb, such are the mysteries, trials, tribulations, and even small
victories at times associated with RF! (smile)
73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Barbara Lombardi" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: So, I'll do anything to get on 160 meters: Check this out
Well my antenna has a higher swr on 40 but for some reason, it works hi hi.
Good luck.
-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of tom behler
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2010 9:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: So, I'll do anything to get on 160 meters: Check this out
Hi, all.
As some of you know, I have been struggling witha Carolina Windom 160
Compact installation over the past few weeks, with little success,
especially when it has come to getting on 160 meters.
The lowest SWR I could get on the band was about 8.0 to 1.
Jim Thompson from RadioWorks (the company who makes the antenna), is trying
to help me troubleshoot the situation, and he has some ideas which a ham
friend and I are going to try tomorrow, weather permitting.
Anyway, one quick suggestion he made to me was to take a coil of about 100
feet of RG8X coax, and put it between the transmitter and my Tentech 238A
manual tuner. He said that this length is about a quarter wave on 160
meters, and might get my sWR down some.
Well, I did this, and it took the SWR down to about 5 to 1 in the center of
the band--around 1.850 MHZ.
The antenna still wouldn't tune with the auto tuner in the TS480, but it
actually tuned with the Tentech 238 manual tuner.
I realize that all I was doing was reducing the SWR by introducing loss into
the antenna, but I thought I'd try to make a few contacts anyway, just to
see if it would be possible.
The Canadian RAC contest is going on this week-end, so I made 2 CW contacts
with no trouble at all. Then, for the heck of it, I went to the SSB portion
of 160, and made a contact with an Ontario station using only 100 watts. I
asked for an honest signal report, and he says I was 10 over S9 into
Ontario.
This surprised the heck out of me, since I know the antenna can't be that
efficient, but if nothing else, I can now say I've been on 160 meters for
the first time in my ham career.
Now, if I can get the antenna itself to perform better, without taking such
crazy measures, I'll be in good shape for the NAQP contests in January.
I know that I have reached this milestone in a rather unorthadox way, but I
just felt the need to share it with my fellow list members.
I'll let you know how things go tomorrow when we get back to some real
antenna tweaking.
73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ, Big Rapids, MI
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