You've shown again that when it comes to an antenna, size does matter. Especially when the physical length is less than 1/2 wavelength, every little bit of additional length helps a lot!
It's pretty easy to achieve resonance with a short antenna using loading coils but until we have room-temperature superconductors cheap enough to use for a Ham antenna, short, loaded antennas will always be very inefficient. That doesn't' mean they won't "get out" or even work DX under the right conditions, but they'll still be a distant second to anything larger. Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Stephen Prior Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:27 PM To: Garrett, Russ; elecraft Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KX-1 what do you use for an antenna when you're in a place with no trees to throw the vertical up? Russ I camp with my KX-1 (and the family!) in Europe every summer. I have tried the buddipole, buddistick and the MP-1, but there is one antenna I've tried which surpasses them all, in my experience and opinion. I have a DK9SQ 10 metre long 'fishing pole'. I connect a 12m or so length of wire to the top, allowing it to hang down vertically. I normally bungee the pole to a tent or car door handle, whatever is available. I use a variable length counterpoise (teflon wire on a reel) which I just measure out roughly a quarter wavelength for the band of interest along the ground and then use the autotuner in the KX-1. I'm not interested so much in 80m, but it covers 40, 30 and 20m just fine and I get far more qsos than I did before with the admittedly neater, yet significantly more expensive alternatives. There may be other poles of this length, but I can thoroughly recommend the DK9SQ 'mast' and I'm pretty sure I've seen it advertised your side of the pond. Hope that's food for thought. 73 Stephen G4SJP (about to book the sea crossing for the next trip to mainland Europe :-)) On 25/02/2009 21:04, "Garrett, Russ" <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have a camping trip planned and will likely be in a few places where > there are no trees where I will easily get a vertical wire up. What > does everyone else do when the surroundings are not ideal for a wire in > a tree? I have seen other antennas referenced such as the buddystick > and the PAC-12. > > Thanks > > Russ Garrett > Kd7mpk > > > mail.bullivant.com made the following annotations > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Please be advised that, unless expressly stated otherwise, any U.S. federal > tax advice contained in this e-mail, including attachments, is not intended to > be used by any person for the purpose of avoiding any penalties that may be > imposed by the Internal Revenue Service. > ********************************************************* > This e-mail is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and contains > information belonging to Bullivant Houser Bailey, which is confidential and/or > legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby > notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution or taking of any action in > reliance on the contents of this e-mail information is strictly prohibited. > If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify the > sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 ______________________________________________________________ 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
