A bit more top band

Well,

Following the antenna I originally made here and then replaced here, I've been fiddling with the earthing arrangement for the system.

I've added some counterpoise wires which I have stapled to the fence and various other bits and bobs in the garden.

I've then made an artificial earth/counterpoise tuner thingamabob, much like this thing back here, and mounted it at the base of the antenna between the earth rods and the radials:

And then adjusted the capacitor for maximum smoke on top band when TXing.

There's quite a lot of current flowing, what improvement it makes I dont know.

Here's a map of FT8 and CW QSOs I've made on top band since the changes to the antenna:

Chopsey Cat (AKA Git Bastard Cat from Hell) is asleep in the conservatory:

whereas Maggie and Florrie Cat are tucked up in one of the dogs beds:

Local conditions.

Artificial Ground - You What?

Well,

My chum Vince, G0ORC has been having a spot of bother in his shack. We have concluded that this may be down to RF problems and as his shack is upstairs, there is little point in trying to create an RF earth as by the time the cable gets to the radio the impedence will likely be too high to be of use.

I found this whilst rummaging on the interweb:

http://www.remeeus.eu/english/hamradio/artificial_ground.htm

And it looked like exactly the kind of thing he needed. As I have quite a collection of bits here, I had a rummage and started to make this for him:

The hardest part by far was mounting the tuning capacitor such that it's issolated from the chasis and effectively floating within the circuit.

The inductor was very scientific and involved some detailed calculations; I just found an old silicone tube and wound some wire round it:

We have configured this inside the shack of G0ORC and initial reports are suggesting that this is enabling current to flow out of the shack into a counterpoise that we have constructed.

As a starter for 10 Artificial Ground experiment goes, seems to work OK.

Fun, egh?
 

Your are, you're completely Loopy!!

Well,

Following some interesting reading on Top Band RX antennas, here:

http://www.qsl.net/kc2tx/

I decided I might like to have a go at making one of those.... the main reason being that my experiments with my sloper from here:

http://g0mgx.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/top-band-what-happens-there-then.html

especially when using it on WSPR, I seem to find that I am being heard by far more stations than are hearing me.... so perhaps a different antenna for receive may help...

So here is this ridiculous concoction:

and as you can see, perhaps not quite as rigid as it needs to be....

but anyhow, it was strapped to a wooden support and connected to the wireless.... result.... local MW broadcast stations significantly weaker on this loop then the sloper, but more interestingly the noise was higher on this antenna than the other.... a total disaster!

So I decided to solder another earth cable onto the existing slopers earthy side and plant some more copper in the garden:

We will have to wait and see if this improves the RX performance...

Here is an interesting image of me in concentration mode:

Cat's weren't much help as normal:

Here the Geddy cat is asleep on my laptop keyboard - not very handy!

Good though, egh?

RF Earth - How about this then?

I've been fiddling around with the RF earth in the shack today; mainly because I was very aware how totally pants the existing arrangement was.

So to start with I have driven three four foot earth rods into the ground just outside the shack window. These rods are soldered together at the top using a piece of old copper pipe - I did the soldering using a blow torch and plumbers solder & flux.

This is fed by a 10mm squared cable into the shack by the shortest route and this in turn is also connected to a piece of copper water pipe. This pipe is not part of any water system but simply used as a distribution bus for the earth:

So in total I have soldered (using the blowtorch method) seven separate connections onto this pipe and secured it underneath the desk using pipe clips. The main earth coming into the shack is the connection you can see on the left hand side and each of the other six points are fed by separate earth cables to the individual pieces of equipment.

This seems like a much more sensible arrangement to me than I had previously and I think this qualifies as a decent RF earth. Cat didn't seem too bothered:

Good though, egh?