Welcome DD5CF / G1ZOS (Colin Wood)

Hi again Colin,
Sorry about the delay responding. I have just spent the past two days in bed, but today I went to work. Some things could not be put off.
I had a visitor from Ottawa, and gave a course for 45 people. Those could not be delayed.

I try to give a welcome to all who register on the forum, and if possible, to provoke some activity.

I was really interested to read about your experiences wit the 80m frame antenna. I was really impressed by the 80m frame antenna, but since most of my activity is now on 20m I needed to make a new antenna. The QRM in this apartment is too high to operate from home, and so I made the 20m version. I was inspired by another user.

I have also been inspired by G0DAD, who operated regularly from a shopping trolley, and he often pushed 100W from his "Pedestrian Mobile". He goes to the pier over the sea and has a lovely take-off. His antenna is an MFJ telescopic whip, 5.2 metres long. The cost about £100 delivered, but the performance is great. It can be shortened by sliding in the elements and cover from 14MHz to 30MHz without an ATU. I lso have a base loading coil so I can use the full telescopic whip to work 10MHz, 7MHz and 3.5MHz, all without an ATU.

The 3.5MHz frame antenna I found was limited by the narrow bandwidth, but the 20m frame covers a good, usable 150kHz span without retuning :-)  One of my next exercises will be to have both antennas with me when I operate from outside the factory, on a bit of waste land. It will be good to compare the performance results.

As regards the gimmik capacitor, I found that it can get hot if running a continuous carrier, or with SSB if you have the compression on. With the scrubbing pad I can run 100W without any problems at all. Now it is the nylon block of the tuning capacitor that is noticeably warm, but that needs 100W CW to get any noticeable heat. If the gimmik cap warms then the tuning tends to drift a but, but it got me on the air fast, and cheap :-)

At the moment the frost has arrived, which limits the days I can listen. This past month has been wet, and the month before I was in Spain (The rain in Spain falls mainly in our garden) . Loads of torrential rain this past 2 days.

So thank you for joining us and for your comments. It is always interesting to hear how others are using or modifying my projects. There are loads of inventive people out there and I am please that this forum allows me to meet a few of them.

Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO

Thank you for the nice welcome Harry, I have used your 80m frame antenna for about 10 years I would think, it is still up in the attic, it needs a quick tune now and again when the temp changes but i am always pleased how well it works, I made it portable which is to say the 4 plastic  pipes are fitted to the center board with 2 clips for each pipe, it takes a while to untangle the wires but I have used it horizontally as a portable antenna many times. I have also now built the 20m version with gimmik cap and will give the pan scrubber varicap a try, thanks for sharing your great ideas with us, also thank you for your comments on my blog which I haven't updated in a while, Vy 73 Colin DD5CF / G1ZOS

Welcome DD5CF / G1ZOS to Harrys Homebrew Homepage forum.

Your account has been activated so you can create new topics, edit your topics, delete them, insert links and pictures, etc.
I hope that you find a lot of interest here and that we can all learn from each other, but mostly, have fun.

Please feel free to give us the benefit of your experience, feedback, and do not hesitate to ask questions, or tell us about yourself.
Do you have an amusing or interesting past that you would like to tell us in memory lane.

I have been reading your blogspot at http://dd5cf-g1zos.blogspot.com and you have a lot of interesting blogs to read.

Very best regards from Harry - SM0VPO (formerly EL84, G8TGL and now G4VVJ)