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| Weekend only antenna click to enlarge picture |
At my location having a permanent outdoor antenna is out of the question as the condo rules frown on any type of antenna. So I have a permanent 20 meter dipole in the attic. My out door antenna is a High Sierra Side Kick and it is only out during contests. It is very portable, about 5 inches off the ground and very close to the deck. In other words not a very ideal location but it does the trick for me in the situation I'm in. When I purchased the antenna about 3 years ago I placed 8 radials in the ground I found as I changed from band to band the starting SWR before tuning was anywhere from 8.1 to as high as 15.1. In most cases it would tune down to 1.2 or less but with the high SWR it took some time and tweaking. For some time now I had planned to increase the radials and hopefully improve the SWR. I recently doubled the amount of radials from 8 to 16 and boy what a difference !!! On all bands the SWR starts at around 3.1 or even 2.1 so this antenna work was well worth it and has made my tuning much faster and not the crazy SWR I had started out with in the past with only 8 radials.
8 comments:
Good on the improved efficiency of your Sierra antenna. Are you saying that the little Sierra could not remain where it is permanently? My gosh, how could anyone know what it is, much less see it. Move that plant on the right next to the fence over to the stairs. Or add two more around the Sierra. 73 Dick
Hi Mike, I'm shure the antenna should work better now. Less loss and much more radiating power. Do you notice a difference in signals? 73, Bas
Hopefully the extra radials will have increased efficiency too. As an attic dipole user myself I would be interested in how the SideKick compares with it on 20m.
Good morning Julian, the up coming CQ CW contest will give me a good opportunity to compare the two antennas. I will post the results.
Hi Mike, indeed the performance will be better with more radials. Good luck, and let us know what the differences are between the two antennas. 73 Paul
Bas I have not yet had a good chance to try out the antenna with the new radials.
Hi Dick, the condo board members are funny ducks. I call them the condo cops!!! Yes they will see it when they do their random site rounds. Then I will be told to remove it and there radar will go up regarding me. So the way I look at it is not to poke a sleeping bear.
Paul there is the CQ WW CW contest coming up so that will give me a good idea of how it works.
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