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| The car with the mono band 30m whip |
I have been reading on some blogs how op's have been able to fit in some operating time during lunch hours and been successful at making some contacts. For me lunch time is not an option as I am out and about during the day and no where near my car at the lunch hour....BUT.....I do get into work about an hour or so early and that would be my ideal radio time. I would be operating from around 5:30a.m. for an hour or so. I feel that either 40m or 30m would be my best bet around that time. When in my mobile I use mono band
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| The mount |
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| Final SWR on 40m |
whip antennas. To prepare for my morning mobile operating time I had to tune both my 40m and 30m whip antennas. I took with me my trusty MFJ antenna analyzer and this thing is great as I find I can tune a whip antenna to the lowest SWR on a desired frequency in about 10 minutes. With the size of my car being very very small (Scion IQ) the ground plane is very small. For this reason I was only able to tune both antennas down to about 2.2.1 and 2.3.1. Thats ok as I do have in the KX3 an antenna tuner that will make the rig see a flat match. It was a nice sunny day with perfect temp's as well for this little project. When I was done and starting to pack up a gentleman came up to me and introduced himself. He saw my license plate (VE3WDM) and connected that call to my blog. He was a ham as well and a reader of my blog.....kinda cool. We had a nice conversation for about 15 minutes exchanging ham talk and he had to get back to eating his lunch and heading back to his job. (as for me I had the day off) I am hoping if the weather is good this coming week that I will get my CW out on 30 and 40m in the early mornings.
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| Final SWR on 30m |
2 comments:
Hello Mike, I got the same problem with my car. Not enough groundplane. Another idea would be a fishing pole you install temporarely with a kind of end-fed antenna. I've been thinking about that myself. Especially interesting when using 40/30m I think. Nice this gentlemen came across. I guess you know his callsign.... 73, Bas
Good evening Bas, I am going to stick with just the whip mount antennas. With operating in the mornings from downtown Toronto a huge antenna may attract attention. Funny you should mention my visitors call sign....I feel very bad but from our introduction to me finally getting home I forgot it!!! Hope he reads the post and this comment and reminds me.
A sign of getting old.
Mike
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