I was not really satisfied about the experimental halo yet. Some fine tuning was required. The weather was beautiful today and because they expect rain in the next week I decided this was the day to do some antenna work. The 15m loop resonance was on approx 21.400 MHz which was way too high. I had to make the 15m loop longer. It was nice to see whatever I did with the 15m loop, it did almost not affect 20m and 17m. In the end I added 20cm on both sides. So far I'm satisfied and I hope the antenna will perform well in the upcoming CQWW WPX contest at the end of the month.
SWR is below 1:2 on all bands. Good enough for me. If the radio is decreasing power because of a bad SWR I can always use the internal tuner.
And yes, there is some loss. But that will not be much. I think I will still be able to make some DX.
I worked 6Y7EI on 15m SSB as a test, got him in two calls. I'm curious about the effect of rain on this experimental halo version 2.0. So far on 20m there was no change when the antenna was wet. Did not test other bands yet. With the upcoming rain forecast I probably post about it next week.
1 comment:
Good morning Bas, very nice to read the antenna is up and preforming nicely. I followed your progress with the work and a nice reward. Also I really like the SWR graph the 7300 offers the operator. I just can't figure out Icom's thinking to not include this in the 7610...They most likely could with an update but as I have learned Icom is not big on this like Elecraft is.
Have a nice weekend.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
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