Excited by the possibility of adding to my DX worked totals on 80M during the ARRL DX CW contest a few week-ends ago, I hurriedly installed a new 80M ground plane (GP) antenna. Like the year before, I intended a single-band effort and the new GP was going to be my secret weapon.
I have been playing with HFTA software from the ARRL Antenna Book to determine the typical take-off angles needed to communicate to DX locales. First step was to develop my elevation profile, which I did based upon the instructions included using a program named MicroDEM. While not the most intuitive thing in the world, I did manage to …
One of the hams on my twitter feed, Dan YO3IBW posed a question asking if he should run a delta loop for 40M. Dan’s antennas are situated on the top of his apartment building in Bucharest. The base of his mast is situated at about 30M above street level, with antenna firing E/W. I decided I would model several …
While this may be TMI, while laying there on the couch during Christmas/New Years recovering from umbilical hernia repair, the Oxycontin-fueled fugue state propelled copious notes on the subject of antennas. This would be my Kubla Khan, dare I be so profane as to even utter this association with the great Coleridge. Besides, my prescription to Percoset ran …