Technician class exam and HF antenna questions

[Joeli Elkayam]

Hi guys,

I've gotten well enough to be able to attend next month's meeting, barring any unforeseen problems. Will there be an opportunity to take a Technician-class license exam at the next meeting? I wanted to ask now to give a heads-up way ahead of time on that question.

I'm also studying in parallel for the General-class license, though I won't be taking that one next month. I've been wanting to get into the HF bands, particularly the lower ones (40 meters and down), but I live in a suburban house with a nosy HOA. I've been researching random wire antennas, does anyone have any experience here with setting up those? Please let me know if you do, I have some questions about how I could set it up

Thanks, everyone

[Paul Pacior]

I will be out of town and not available to participate as a VE.

 

Paul E. Pacior

KA5PUD

pepa...@outlook.com

832-314-6277

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[Dennis Lamberth]

We can make arrangements for you to test at the next meeting.

Bring $15 cash

Dennis Lamberth

K1ATM / WRNA759

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[CurmudgeonGuy]

Hi Joeli,

There are plenty of wire antennas that can be erected if you have trees.  They would be very difficult to see unless you were looking for them.  How good of terms are you on with the immediate/adjacent neighbors?

Best Regards,

Mike

NJ5A / WRKQ851

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-woodlands-amateur-radio-club/CAEOzXkQSS0HxyPDe%3DxSo6Dhu_CRpQkp7i7HKxEAqdsdapO_iqg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Martin Gerhard]

Hello Hams

Coming across the Atlantic.  QSO with Aeronautical Mobile?  Try me on 14.280

Currently south of Greenland. 

Martin

KW2FLY/AM

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-woodlands-amateur-radio-club/CAEOzXkQSS0HxyPDe%3DxSo6Dhu_CRpQkp7i7HKxEAqdsdapO_iqg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Joeli Elkayam]

Hi Mike,

We're on decent terms with one of our neighbors, but I'd rather not extend onto their property if I can help it. My current plan is to snake the random wire across the roof starting from a tree in my backyard, curving it around the perimeter to reach the desired length of wire (140' would be nice so that I can hit 160 meters but if I have no other options I can shorten it). There'll be a 9:1 unun with a ground wire wrapped around the walls of my room and possibly a custom antenna tuner if a future HF rig's auto-tuner can't handle it. Will it be fine to curve it around in a sort of S-shape?

Thanks again,

Joeli

[CurmudgeonGuy]

Hey Joeli,

Not sure off the top of my head but it seems like the math is a little off.  The 9:1 might be the component I’m unsure about.  It seems that the 140’ is less than a 1/4 wave for 160 meters.  It would work for 80 meters at 132’ as an end fed half wave.

Not sure about the grounding you are planning either.  Others may be more in tune (sorry, couldn’t help myself) with that detail.

I have one snaked around my property. Are you in the Woodlands?  Rumor is that the township will not interfere with you putting up antennas if you are a licensed ham.

I would definitely use an external tuner for this proposed configuration.  I know on the Yaesu FT-991A the internal tuner will protect the radio and not tune the antenna if parameters are too divergent.  External tuners are better with larger disparities.

A tuner just makes the radio happy with an inefficient antenna.  Best thing is to make the  antenna as efficient as possible.  

Best Regards,

Mike

NJ5A / WRKQ851

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/the-woodlands-amateur-radio-club/93e15fcf-0a38-414c-b890-eb0d28b8af5bn%40googlegroups.com.

[Joshua Harper]

Can you add one more to the roster?  I also have cash hehe.  :-) 

[Dennis Lamberth]

Not a problem

Dennis Lamberth

K1ATM / WRNA759

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[Joeli Elkayam]

Hey again Mike,

Sadly I'm not in the Woodlands, I'm closer to Spring in an HOA that can be rather strict.

I've looked into EFHW, and people indeed say it's more resonant on the band it's designed for - in this case, 80 meters and it apparently even works well on the other half-wave multiples (40m, 20m, 10m).This actually may be a good idea to pursue, as I'm planning for 80 meters to be one of my "hot spots". It might be trickier to get the wire precisely to 132' as opposed to more choices for the random wire (using this site and this one too as guides for 'ideal' EFRW lengths that cover as many bands as possible) but it's probably not impossible. I just have a couple questions about the setup, I apologize if I'm sending out too many questions about this:

1. Like I said, one of the goals of this setup is to be able to cover as many bands as possible, I have heard a custom external tuner is not required for this length of wire within the 80 meter band since it is naturally resonant, but how will it fare on other bands (especially the harmonics of 40, 20, 10) without an external antenna tuner? Is it "harder" to tune a random wire of similar length for say, the 17 meter band than it would be for the EFHW? The big question here is 160 meters, as I admittedly have an interest of going on the low frequencies to the point of even sacrificing somewhat higher bands like 10 meters - I'm not sure if the EFHW and the random wire will have similar performance if an external tuner is used for both? I suppose this is what experimenting is for...

2. I'm unsure how the counterpoise I need would change, if at all. Technically I could cut the length in half so that it becomes a quarter-length on 80 meters and just accept that as my "top" band, but what would happen if the counterpoise length was still 131', as a kind of "help" for operating on 160 meters?

I apologize if I'm asking about more complex things that you might not know, I'm trying to Google it but maybe people here also know something about this kinda specific scenario. Thanks again, everyone