Experimental multiband halo rebuild (1)

  My last post about the multiband halo was a bit depressing. I miss the antenna because when it worked I was very content with it. It might not be the ultimate DX antenna and hasn't much gain. But it receives well and it is almost omni directional. I decided to make a rebuild and solve the issues that occurred in the last 2 years. Luckily I've written some experiences in this blog that are now very useful.

Viewing the pic at the left. I fixed the "hanging" poles by uv resistant guy wires. Instead of using speakerwire, twinlead or ladderline I decided to go for a real halo design. Just to see what difference will occur. From publications I've read so far it is best to start with the highest frequency halo. In my case this will be the 12m (24MHz) halo.

  Unfortunately the weather is getting worse these days. And I'm not having that much time. I've made the "core" of the antenna stronger and made all the necessary plastic items like distance holders last week after my work in the evening just before sunset. It gives me about an hour a day. This sunday I had big plans but when inspecting the house gutters I also found some other loose roof parts that had to be repaired before winter. Of course that was much more important. My intention was to get the antenna working before the CQWW next weekend but this will probably not happen. It doesn't matter much because I probably do a 10m single band effort again.

  I wanted at least the 12m band halo be ready today. Luckily I had enough time for that at daylight. Above you see part of the construction. Wires are spaced about 4cm. The ends are tied into a point. It is a choice. It can also be flat ended. This was easier for me. When flat ended there will be more capacity between the ends in the end that will make tuning more difficult.

I already discovered a interesting feature. When I first measured the SWR/resonance the loop was a bit too large. Resonating on about 24.8 MHz. Bending wires back did not do the trick much. But shifting the plastic spacers back to form a sharper point brought the resonance up quickly to 24,9 MHz

  The feedpoint is again made with the Diamond BU50 balun. I attached one wire to the balun and soldered 4 additional wires to that one wire each side. One for every of the 4 halo loops. I made everything as ugly as possible because ugly and messy antennas work best!

  First measurement of the loop after I finished it. Not bad at all I think. 

Length of the wire is exactly one wave length on 24,9 MHz. Of course it is too long as expected but you need some length for tuning. Next halo loop will be the 15m loop, it will have an effect on the 12m wire known from earlier experiments. I also need to keep in mind that resonance will shift up about 60Hz when mounted at top of the tower.

I'm curious how this new design will react on rain. With the speakerwire resonance shifted down. I hope rain will have less effect on this design because the loop wires are much more separated. 

I also noticed that 12m was quite broad banded. I hope this will be the case on other bands as well.

#6m DX jackpot: worked Reunion Isl. and Mauritius

 

2 new band DXCC within a few minutes. 3B8CW came back on my CQ! Also worked FR4OM and 3B8HK a few minutes later. 6m band magic!

#60m Fernando de Noronha worked

 

My quest to learn CW (10)

 

Concentrated on callsigns and numbers, important for contesting.

Still do the lessons just to get faster but it is not most important anymore. I do a lot of plain text training which I do on a slightly higher speed of 28/14 wpm. So far this goes well. 

TX training is done with the Begali basic paddle, try to do it most of the days. My CQ of course and QRL?. Some abbreviations like GA, GM, GE, HW, BK, KN, AR etc. Having fun sending BENS BEST BENT WIRE.  

Try to listen to some CW QSOs but still they are way too fast. Found the slower ones but even that I cannot decode. Yes I recognize some letters and write it down only to find out that I cannot make anything out of it. The only thing I can decode successfully are some beacons after listening four or five times writing down and filling in the letters/numbers I missed in the next pass.

I think it is just a matter of continuing and hopefully I will get it in my mind somewhere along the long path to learn CW.

Provisional end of the experimental multiband halo

 Regular readers of this blog know that I build an experimental multiband square halo in 2022. 

After two years in my tower it started to detoriate. Of course this was kind of a prototype and very experimental and I know everything comes to an end. But it was a very solid performer and lots of DX could be worked. 

High performance speaker cable it reads. The thing is....the black insulation is perfect but the red one doesn't seem to withstand the elements...

Isolation just detoriated. 

Wire breaks on almost every corner.

Wires began to hang because the construction is not that solid.

I think I will make a rebuild, Have to search for alternative wire. I might use 300 Ohm twinlead or something else. Have to reinforce the construction as well... Weight is an issue of course. It would be so much easier using a thin single wire like most cobwebb designs use. I might consider that as well since I don't think there is much less performance not using full size loops instead of just dipoles, I could be wrong of course...

3BMOX antenna overhaul (2)

 

A while ago I continued the 3BMOX overhaul. As you can see on the photo I mounted everything according the user manual. Some bolts/nuts were missing and had to make new ones. So far it was not too difficult. Resonance on the 20m a bit on the high side, resonable on 15m but very bad on 10m. I really doubted I did mount something wrong. But measured everything and it everything was mounted exactly the way it should.

Here some measurements:

I asked and read about the issue. It is probably a matter of mounting the antenna too close to the ground. So I raised the antenna 1 mtr. Resonance was still on 28.2 MHz but SWR went down to 2,5:1. It could be right? Unfortunatly SWR on 15m went up from perfect to 1,3:1 after I raised the antenna. I wish I could put it up higher but the antenna is too heavy (22 kg) and big to do it on my own.

My opinion about this antenna is that it is build well except the clamps material that isolates the elements from the boom. I'm not shure what material is used but I think it is POM. From what I heard is that white POM is not UV resistant, the black variation is. This material is also called Delrin, although I think that is a brand name. Personally I stick with Stauff clamps (PP material) when building antennas. The 20m moxon itself is a bit flimsy. I really am not shure what windforce this antenna can have... but that would be another story.

The 10m SWR is a bit suspicious. All the antennas I ever build had good SWR also near to the ground, only the resonance would shift after raising the antenna. However, this is a multiband antenna with sleeve fed dipoles on 15m and 10m. It could be working different from what I am used to.

New licence

 

Received a new licence from the Dutch authorities today. It was my own request. The old one was not readable anymore. You need to have this with you when operating especially outside the Netherlands. The card only is enough in the Netherlands itself. I know that there are people that scratch the "not" from "CW not included" away. Because they know CW, but why not do the exam? We cannot do any CW exams here in the Netherlands but you can do it in Belgium.

#6m #4m ES-season 2024 review

 What can I tell about this season. It started reasonable well. Then things happened, or did not happen. Only 4 new DXCC on 6m and 3 new ones on 4m this season is a lot worse compared to previous years. I also didn't spend a lot of time on the radio compared to previous years.

The season started on the 14th of May for me with a QSO to Chile on 6m. CE4WJK was worked in very strong propagation to South America. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

2 June: I worked Italy IZ0TTG on 4m as expected. Not shure if Italy had legal access to 4m at that time. I worked IZ0TTG on SSB. QSO confirmed on eQSL.

4 June: Montenegro 4O6AH worked on 4m. Haven't got the confirmation. According to QRZ.com this station only does paper QSL. 

Also on 4 June I made a QSO on 6m with Asiatic Russia RD9D. Legal or not? We might never know because who knows what is going on in Russia really? QSO is not confirmed (yet) could have been a pirate station as well...

6 June: Malawi 7Q6M worked on 6m. It was a difficult one and it might be pure luck. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

9 June: propagation went to the west. St. Vincent J88IH was worked on 6m. QSO confirmed on LoTW.

23 June: Ukraine UZ5DU worked on 4m, it is with these DXCC always the question if this is legal or not since, like Russia, who know what actually is going on? Also this QSO is not confirmed. Could be a pirate station as well...

So far this was the end of the ES season for me on 6m and 4m. Due to private circumstances I was not able to be on the radio monitoring much. So, there might be DX I missed. But what I heard from others is that propagation was very bad in the last 2 months. Something that has been occured before at the sunspot maximum. However, winter could have F2 surprises for us...

ZX-Yagi 5 element (ZX-5ITB)

  Years ago Ron Eberson had a small antenna manufacturing company ZX-yagi producing very good quality antennas. Especialy in the 11m community it was a well known brand. At least around the ninetees of last century. It appears the company is still there since WIMO Germany has the antennas still for sale. According to this website http://www.zx-yagi.com/. I wonder if Rob is still constructing them when one is ordered? 

Anyway, a well known 11m yagi was the ZX-5ITB, a kind of short 5 element  yagi. I found one on the internet for sale about 22 years ago.  At that time I had big plans for towers and big antennas. I could get it for a nice price and aquired the antenna which was way too big for my tower at that moment. The guy that sold it to me told me it was a 5ITB converted to 10m. Well, I never had this antenna into the tower, it was stored in my garage while other antennas got into the tower. I now thought it was finally time to see if the antenna was still complete and take a measure with an analyzer to see what part of the 10m band it was tuned for.

At first I found a construction manual for the 5ITB but unfortunately it was incomplete. I decided to just put everything together since everything was color coded and pre-drilled. It went well and SWR measurement followed.

These are quite old designs (ON4UN), very populair at the end of last century. Radials mounted directly not isolated from the boom and a large gamma-match which is essentially a large capacitor.

Looks like the antenna is indeed tuned for 10m, probabely the CW part. Not sure because this can shift when the antenne is high into a tower.

I now know everything is in working order. Had to store it in the garage again of course so had to dismantle everything. The antenna is for sale. Not shipping it. €150. If interested write me an e-mail. You can find the e-mail address via QRZ.com.

If anyone knows the correct measures for the ZX-5ITB ? Please let me know...

Update 5-October-2024: Antenna is sold to PD7DD Willem.

My quest to learn CW (9)

 Here I am again with the results ;-)

Unfortunately some days are missing, it was just a matter of no access to the internet. But practised with morsemania app on my phone those days. 

Managed to finish lesson 40 with a speed of 28/11 wpm. Now doing 28/12 wpm. Also doing word practise with 5 letters now. Getting better but very slowly.

If possible I try to decode some morse on the radio. A beacon I heard was very low signal on 10m. Had to listen a couple of times before I could get the complete text.

YM7TEN/B KN91RB KN91RB PWR1W YM7TEN/B as heard with signal RST 313 on 28.225 at 29 August. Stations that call or make QSOs have been heard but it is all gibberish to me, sending way to fast and to me it is like they don't have any pause between the letters. I really wonder how someone is able to decode???

2002 antenna work - 6 element logperiodic

  It has been in the ninetees of last century I started to experiment and build antennas. Sometimes together with friends. I had a friend which I spoke quite often on 11m back in those days. He was also living near the coast but about 60km west of me. We discussed experimenting and our dreams about great antennas. He was busy building a 6 element logperiodic from which he found some drawings. I helped him when visiting him but I can't remember if he ever had the antenna in use. When I moved out of my parents house in '95 I lost contact and I believe he didn't do anything with the radio hobby anymore. The logper antenna however was still in my mind. And finally in 2002 I decided to give it a try and build this antenna with information I got from some Swedish 11m DXers.

I lived in a very small house and some of the work has to be done just in my living room. Living alone at that time I didn't care. Outside was also small, all work had to be done on a few square meters. 

According to the building guide the antenna was fed by a balun. Detailed drawings and descriptions were found. 

This antenna was mounted first on a short pole to test and tune it. 

I didn't really care what people in the neighbourhood would think of it :-). I can tell that in this (low) position I made a QSO with a station from Indonesia, my report was 59+. I was happy with the result. But of course it should be in the tower. For that I got some help from a friend and his wife. Otherwise I couldn't get the tower up, it was too heavy.

At that time I was not allowed on 10m yet. So DX was made on 11m. I can tell that much DX was made with this antenna. Especially to stations in the pacific. Fun story is that after I mounted this antenna one of the first stations I spoke was the station from Sweden from which I had the design. Later on I bought the house across the street. I mounted this antenna on the versatower in 2006. Our licence system  changed and we were allowed on HF, I then discovered it was a solid performer on 10m as well. The balun however did not survive the weather, although enclosed in a box. I replaced it by the Diamond BU-50 which I currently use in my multiband squalo.

Last time I used this antenna was in the winter of 2011. 

https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2011/12/beam-up.html

The antenna was demolished by a large storm in 2012. 

https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2012/01/storm-damage-and-what-i-have-learned.html

Till today I still use parts from this antenna in other projects. For example some of the tubing has been used to fed the wires through in my solarpanel installation.

Changed 23-9-2024: Made some changes in the text. Did add some rememberings.