Thoughts on my vertical As many of you know, my plan for the Fall/Winter was to pursue DXCC on 80 meters. I have got many of the pieces in place for that quest.
1. Got the Harris Mil Surplus Amplifier and 220v regular power supply. Missing: Soldered up connectors to put it on the air. When it works, I should be able to drive the "full legal power" even on RTTY. So, I need to plan for max power as I will ultimately be capable of it. This thing has a "preamp" on it that is about like most regular ham amps and takes something like a watt or less of input, ultimately. It's one of those overbuilt milspec things. 2. Got the HF2V vertical in place with 60 radials. Got it "mostly" tuned up. Missing: Serious plan for more than 25 KHz of band coverage at a time, esp. for upcoming CQ WW SSB and also covering both the DX Window on SSB plus CW and maybe RTTY. This is mostly about the vertical. My main problem of the moment is better frequency coverage. My roughed in plan is some combination of the following: 1. Go buy some wire and a hose clamp and put on a hand-made capacitance hat. This is more-or-less in the manual. This is not intended to be permanent as I someday want to add the 30 meter kit (which precludes the capacitance hat). The idea would be to broaden the antenna a bit, hopefully without hurting performance. Also hoping that broadening it a bit may make an antenna tuner a realistic potential. I haven't tried it with the 25 KHz width, but the SWR falls off very hard, very fast. I'm not sure how well a tuner ever works, even at 80 M if I tune from the shack, esp. if the amplifier comes into play later. My coax appears to be amplifier ready, but I always worry about high SWR with that sort of thing. 2. Retune the antenna for the extra portion of the CW band. Have a series of shorting straps in place that would usually be adjacent and thus have little effect. When any one of these would be deployed to the bottom of the coil, however, it would shorten the coil by a little different amount. If I got this relationship right, it would then shorten the antenna, electrically, and enable me to cover a different 25 to 50 KHz. For the contest, I probably only need 100 KHz total (3500 to 3600). I'd also ultimately want one more strap that put me back in the SSB DX window at 3795. If this is not the right scheme, please propose one. I need something simple and which does not involve repeatedly moving the coil itself, which would be unfun and maybe impossible in cold weather hereabouts. I have to tighten the screws very hard on the coil clamps and the coils themselves don't move easily, either. There may even be some snow and ice involved for all I know. Thus, for the price of a short walk (even in very cold weather), I need to quickly move the antenna to a known "other" band of 80 meter frequencies reliably and without a lot of tuning. I'm finding narrow bandwidth is a little tougher to deal with than I thought. What I'd like to avoid, as I've said, is moving the coil itself unless there is a way that is both simple and reliable. I don't want multiple trips to and from the shack every time I do this. I want to walk out, move a wire or some such, and start operating again. The other problem I have is I'm not 100 per cent sure of what I have. The antenna analyser is coming up with values consistent with what ON4UN's book says I should have. And, even at 100 watts, I worked a couple on 80 this week, SSB, especially EI6S. But, the op, George, seems to have worked everyone on earth at least twice and I was the weakest one he worked that night by far. This includes some other 100 watt stations that night. OTOH, the antenna is clearly "out-hearing" the G5RV, by upwards of 40 dB in at least one case. I am now hearing zone 15 (Croatia), if faintly, on SSB and I expect I could probably work a lot of Europe, even as I have it, with 100 watts on CW. But, is there something else I have overlooked to improve the DX radiation angle? I laid out the 60 verticals assuming a velocity factor of 50 per cent as per ON4UN's book. Did I misread that? Should it have been longer wire or something? Any ideas appreciated. I think I have something workable, but if a few adjustments could matter, I still have time to do them before CQ WW CW. Larry WO0Z
