Last weekend I had the opportunity to hook up 2 different portable antennas and try a comparison on the air. The 2 antennas were a 42-foot wire (with 32-foot counterpoise) and a 300-ohm twinlead-fed inverted V for 40m supported by one of those SD20 fishing poles from World Radio. The rig was the KX1 on 40 meters operating from a Gel Cell (3W output). I used the built-in tuner for both antennas. A BNC-to-binding-post adaptor was used for the wire, and the Elecraft balun was used with the inverted V. Both antennas matched to 1-to-1. The 42-foot wire received slightly lower signal reports than the inverted V, but most people said that they could still hear me fine on the wire. To my surprise, though, most people reported no real difference with and without the counterpoise. I don't know if this was a circumstance of my particular installation, but I would have thought that the counterpoise would make more difference. The KX1 was on the dining room table. The 42-foot wire went out through the kitchen, over the door, and out to a tree limb over the deck. It was about 6 feet off the deck, for a total height of 12 feet or so - mostly horizontal. The counterpoise was simply laying on the floor around the perimeter of the room. The 20-foot pole was bungee-corded to the deck railing so the top of the inverted V was about 25 feet off the ground. The twinlead was about 45 feet long. Each side of the antenna was 33-feet long. The bottom line is that either antenna seems to allow for good QSOs and fun. Both of the antennas are easy to put up and take down. Next time I'll try 30m and 20m. 72, John W2XS _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
