Topband: DX Engineering NCC-2 (Follow up)
Thanks to K3LR and KA1J and NS7V for sending many suggestions! My NCC-2 with 2 DX Engineering active verticals spaced 50' apart didn't seem to offer any peaks or nulls or noise reduction on 160M compared to the top loaded transmit vertical. It does work on 40M and less so on 80M. On the WWV 2.5 Mhz carrier it will easily null the tone down to inaudible from S8. So for the ARRL 160M I increased the spacing to 100', added toroid chokes at the base of each antenna, and put down the 4 x 15' radials for each. The noise on 160M is diffuse at S4 and the NCC-2 still offered no peaks or nulls of any signals and offered no advantage over listening on the XMIT vertical. The internal jumpers were tried set for 1.800 and no jumpers. So I still need a 160M RX antenna :( But I am keeping the NCC-2, it worked quite well on 40/80 compared to listening to the 40/80 OCF, peaking some signals very nicely and producing contacts in the CQWW CW and RTTY that would not have been made otherwise. 73, Bill KO7SS in AZ _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
Topband: DX Engineering NCC-2
I have the NCC-2 and 2 of the DX Engineering active verticals, the CQWW CW was the first test drive. VERY impressive results on 40M, less so on 80M and even less so on 160, compared to listening to the transmit antennas, an OCF on 40/80 and top loaded vertical on 160. Just not much peaking or nulling of signals found on 160M. The antennas are in a pine tree forest. The noise is nonspecific, a constant S2 on 40, S4 on 80, and S5 on 160. The neighborhood is lots of vacation cabins with a million possible noise sources. The question is: the spacing between the 2 active verticals is 50'. The manual talks about spacing between 1/10 and 1/4 wavelength which is a big variation when considering all 3 bands. Would an increase in spacing help on 160M? The ground rods were pounded into extremely rocky soil with a sledge hammer and I can't get them out, so "experimenting" with the spacing would require buying more ground rods :) 73, Bill KO7SS on Mt Lemmon in southern Arizona _ Topband Reflector Archives - http://www.contesting.com/_topband
