I spent the majority of Saturday of my wedding anniversary weekend working on trying to get my petulant antenna mast project up in the air. With the assistance of my wife and daughter(s,) I was able to get my Inverted Vee up to a test height of approx. 26 feet at center mast (ends are approx. 5′-6′ off the ground, and geometry is not exactly in line with the recommended angles.) I say “test” height, as the goal is to get the final center mast to a height of approx. 38 feet, but I left out 3 sections of mast for the time being until I can get some bugs worked out, both signal-wise and structurally (see below.) The pivoting base needs some readjustment and even with 3 guy wires it’s a bit tipsy (the final plan is to have two levels of guy cables, and this geometry is a bit off too – I’m going to have to change the angles or add a 4th guy line.) But either way it’s up in the air so I could start working on the second set of issues – RF.
When I first got the antenna, it sat in my living room for over a month while waited for final approval to put up my mast. Finally pushing myself over to the philosophy of “get it in the air – any antenna is better than no antenna,” I did just that: I strung an 80M-6M wire antenna across 2 yards (my own + my neighbors) at arm-reach level dangling from the trees – about 2 meters off the ground almost linear. No additional variables – just 150 feet of good quality coax + the antenna. I was able to pick up signals from all over the place, but nobody could hear me. So I figured good start – wait for the mast.
The first time I was able to get the mast up as a test, it was 16-20 feet off the ground and I started having a LOT of static interference. However it was clipped at both ends near metal objects; had an inline lightning arrestor inserted (unsure if it was directional or oriented wrong,) not well grounded; on a metal mast pole; I had swapped out the coax for another [what I consider to be possibly a lower quality brand] cable; and just to add 2 more variables, was connected through a metal bulkhead at my 19″ window rackmount, and I had a brand new rotary tuner inline (I was convinced my first “used” tuner was broken – which I’m not so sure about now – and the new one ironically had LESS interference in BYPASS mode…)
I never said I like to do things the easy way…
So I brought it down to work on and (due to other factors) it’s been WEEKS (ney, maybe a month?) since I had the antenna in the air. TICK. TICK. TICK. TICK…
Each weekend + every few non-rainy days I’ve been outside working on things – rigging up guy cables, digging post holes, bolting 4x4s and cable winches together, etc. This weekend, it happened! I pushed the limits of sleep deprivation and pain (more than usual) and with the assistance of most of the women in my family, we got the thing in the air – and to roughly 70% of the final height !!!
I immediately hit the radio, and found (good news) that most of my static interference is gone, at least at the 20M and higher frequencies, but I couldn’t clearly hear even my NOAA/NIST Time beacons at 5, 10 + 15 + Canada @ 3.330 that I can normally hear. I also rediscovered (as I had completely forgotten) that the air was alive with rapid-fire traffic, as it was ARRL Field Day weekend !!! With hope faded but still there, I figured I’d use the opportunity to try and make some QSLs secondary to the mission of testing the TX ability of my antenna. So I spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening at the radio, listening to traffic all the way from WI + MI to MA, and VT down to VA/NC, but nobody could hear me except one person who could hear something, but couldn’t pull me out of the background. So my antenna tests and first day of my first ARRL Field Day were – to me – essential failures with the exception of me at least being able to hear a lot of traffic, giving me the ability to practice tuning and see where my antenna interference still exists.
Although I cannot consider them official “QSLs,” here are the stations that I was able to log hearing clearly on the First Day of my first ARRL Field Day:
[to be continued…]