Saturday, June 30, 2012

Sunday antenna afternoon

Testing my new mast, Cobwebb vs end fed and possibly the 10m yagi 

Tomorrow I will be testing my new home made portable aluminium mast. I have constructed it using various widths of aluminium loosely fitting pipes and clamps. Theoretically it should be able to reach 13m (42ft). I will update my Projects page with more info and pictures later. 

I hope to be able to set it up attached to my car without further (guying) support and reach at least 10m (33ft). It will be interesting to see if it can hold my 10m 4-el yagi (6kg) at that height. 

If it works out well enough I will raise my Cobwebb 5-band antenna (only 2kg) and compare it head-to-head with my half wave end fed wire antenna to see which of the two is the better /P DX antenna. I just hope conditions on the higher bands are favourable tomorrow. 

A dipole's effectiveness depends a lot on its height above ground. With the Cobwebb's lowest band being 20m, a mast that goes up to 10m does not make it a DX killer on the lower of the five bands. However, I think it is fair to say that 10m is very reasonable height for a /P operation.

More later..

2 comments:

  1. Hallo Lars,

    Ik hoop dat de mast de Cobwebb ook met wind kan houden. 2kg toplast kan gekke dingen doen. Laten we het beste er van hopen.
    Ik ben heel benieuwd en uiteraard ook naar het verschil van beide antennes.
    Veel succes morgen met de testen.
    73 Hans, PE1BVQ.

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  2. Bedankt Hans. Zoals je kunt lezen is het half gelukt: onvoldoende resultaten om iets over de DX performance te zeggen en de yagi van 6kg heb ik niet opgezet. Die 2kg op 12m was geen probleem (afgezien van spierpijn).
    Gr, Lars.

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