I designed a nifty minibeam about 5-6 years ago. It uses active
circuitry on receive, and a rather complicated set of element tuners for
transmit (with relays and stepper motor). I created a PC interface to
drive the transmit circuitry from software, and prototyped a standalone
PIC controller, but have been too busy filling kit orders for my other
projects to finish it. I use an OCF dipole for transmit most of the time
now, and the active minibeam for receive. It's quite small, covers
80-10m in receive, and has instant front/back switching.
I submitted the project to QST/QEX, but they don't think there's enough
interest without the transmit controller. I also had a couple commercial
antenna manufacturers seriously interested, but nothing has come of it
yet. Look for details on my website, www.telepostinc.com under the
"E-Beam" link.
73,
Larry N8LP
Vic K2VCO wrote:
Richard Thorne wrote:
So what is the group using for receive antenna's?
There are all kinds of specialized receiving antennas such as loops,
ferrite loops, and even Beverages (but they don't fit in urban
locations!)
My experience has been that the most important thing is to use a
balanced horizontal antenna. Of course it should be as high and away
from noise sources as possible. It should use a balun or be fed with
balanced line in order to reduce noise pickup on the feedline which
passes close to various noise sources.
You can buy or make a *balanced* active antenna which is much smaller
than a full-sized dipole. Many active antennas are unbalanced, which
is not desirable.
_______________________________________________
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
