I would be inclined to lengthen my antenna and try to raise it higher off the ground, if that was feasible under the given circumstances. I generally find more reasonace (and lower SWR) happens with lower inductance and higher capacitance in the antenna circuit. This assumes you are using a typical T circuit tuner. As always the standard disclaimer applies. Your mileage (or signal) may vary. - 73 I was thrilled to take part in tonight's Rag Chew Net, and made my first HF contact (with my rig) with Roy, W5TKZ, at a whopping distance of 9 miles. He noted my signal was weak.
However, after our net, I stumbled across members of the 3916 Net, and had a strong signal report from a station in Florida -- I guess the band was opening up! I used a Buddipole with special large coils and extended whips (my radio is a Yaesu 857D). Antenna analyzer showed the SWR dip was *really* narrow, and it took a while to tune it to 3910. And I'm sure most of my RF energy was going straight up. At some point I'll have to get an antenna tuner and maybe a proper half-wave 80-meter dipole antenna. Some interesting questions came to mind for you antenna experts out there: If you're trying to take the SWR minimum to a lower frequency, is it better to lengthen the antenna, or add more inductance? My whips were full out, so I tapped off two more coil turns to drop the SWR minimum 160 kHz to get the minimum SWR on 3910 kHz (SWR minimum was 1.4). There was a lot of inductance on the antenna from those coils. Where is the extra capacitive reactance coming from to cancel out the inductive reactance at SWR minimum? The Buddipole kit for 80 meters has a Balun with settings of 1:1, 2:1, 4:1. I had no clue or instructions what to set it to, but found another Buddipole user's website who recommended the 4:1 setting for 80 meters. Well, it worked, but in general, how do you know what setting to use? Looking forward to your comments, and see you this weekend at Field Day! 73 de Bill, KG5FQX _______________________________________________ BVARC mailing list BVARC@bvarc.org http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org
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