Mike, your description does not say how close that "miracle whip" is to the KX1. Often they are mounted right on the radio. That puts the RF field as close as possible to the KX1 and AF1.
The second thing I'd do is connect a (roughly) 1/4 wavelength long wire to the KX1 case to provide a lower impedance for RF at the rig. That will provide a significant boost to your signal as well (in spite of the miracle whip advertising). The first thing I'd do is to connect an extension wire to that whip antenna and toss it in a tree, if that's at all possible. The miracle whip at 54 inches is an efficient radiator only 50 MHz and above, and then only with a decent counterpoise. Note they say it will 'tune' over a broad range, not that it is an efficient radiator over that range. No one has rewritten the laws of physics, and they dictate that such an antenna is very, very inefficient. What the miracle whip gets you is great convenience in many situations. Adding length to it will improve the efficiency and move the RF field a bit farther from the AF1. Finally, if a counterpoise or longer radiator are not options, you can try putting bypass capacitors on the power and phones leads at the AF1. It's likely the RF is being picked up by one of those leads rather than being picked up by the AF1 circuits directly. Put a small value capacitor - 0.01 through 0.001 uf - across the power leads and audio leads on the pc board near the jacks. The larger value cap will be more effective at the lower frequencies. That may reduce the RF getting into the circuit itself enough to eliminate the issue. Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Weir Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2011 1:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Elecraft] Fine tuning AF1 Using the AF1 along with my Elecraft KX1 and the Miracle whip antenna I found the AF1 while transmitting with the KX1 at 1.2 watts was being affected by the RF from the rig. When I used the auto tuner on the KX1 with the AF1 turned on I would hear buzzing and clicking in my ear buds. Also seemed when transmitting the AF1 was picking up RF as I could hear hash in my ear buds along with the CW tone. At home I used my attic DX-EE antenna along with the KX1 and AF1 did not have any issues. Any ideas for the portable operations?? I have pictures of the setup on my blog if that may help with ideas? Mike VE3WDM http://ve3wdm.blogspot.com ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
