Why Do I Need A New Antenna?

When I started my ham radio journey, I lived in a suburb of Philadelphia. The house was a twin that sat at the convergence of three hills. Essentially, it was in a depression or, well, crater. It was also a corner lot with power lines running both ways. If I’d wanted more RF noise I wouldn’t have known where to start to create it. In the midst of this, I put a diplole antenna running the length of the attic. It wasn’t stellar. But then again, it was 2017 and the solar cycle wasn’t doing anyone any favors even with good setups.

A lot has changed since then. When we moved to Ohio, I strung the same dipole in the attic and went back to business as usual in the new QTH. It wasn’t much better than before. This is not a surprise. But I got into POTA and started doing a lot of portable operating. In fact, the bulk of my contacts over the last 3 years have been from my portable station. It’s been wonderful! I ended up not paying a lot of attention to just how poorly my attic dipole was performing.

The dipole in question is tuned for 40 and 20-meters. It’s from MFJ and it does what it does. But it’s not very versatile and it’s inside the house. That’s great for some things but getting out or being flexible aren’t really on the menu.

What To Do?

I don’t live in a place with restrictions on antennas but I also don’t live on some massive plot of land in the middle of nowhere. I’m still on something akin to a hillside, but it’s not nearly as dramatic as at the old place. A vertical seemed like a good idea since I didn’t really have a place to hang a dipole that would work. Enter the DX Commander Classic 2.

The Cons

Let’s start with the liabilities, shall we? The place where I can put a vertical is on the side yard of my house. The space between the house and the neighboring fence is about 40 feet. Running front to back (E-W) there is a long stretch to the road and then a shorter stretch to the fence that contains the backyard and associated dogs. It’s a weird rectangle and the overhead space is odd as well because of the house and several trees that I don’t control. That means the position of the antenna is dictated by, as always, Not Me.

The other cons? I dunno yet. We’ll give it some time.

The Pros

A vertical has a small footprint and is easy to mount in a semi-permanent fashion. I can put a spike in the ground and position the antenna on top of it if I so choose. I can also just guy it out and hope for the best. Lots of options.

With 6 elements, it covers 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 6, and 2-meters. That’s a lot of bands. It’s so much more flexible than my string o’ wire in the attic that it really can’t do much other than improve my situation. It is also easier to set up, take down, get to, and maintain. Lots to like here.

The thing is also really easy to put together and remarkably tolerant when it comes to installation. Another win for THIS vertical.

The Plan

This is the part where I should be talking about how I took measurements and planned out the orientation of everything. Instead, after months of thinking, “I should do that this summer or something” I grabbed my phone and placed a pick-up order at DX Engineering. That is the blessing and curse of being 20 minutes from the largest ham radio equipment dealer in the country (world?). It’s just so easy to click buttons and drive over to pick things up. I ordered the DX Commander Classic 2, a window passthrough panel from MFJ, and a bag of turf staples to hold down my radials and that was that.

The Big Decision

The DX Commander Classic 2 comes with the option to replace the 30-meter element with an 80-meter element. This is done by making an inverted-L using a nearby tree or other support. I don’t really have a great place to do that. I’m sure I could make it work, but I’m also sure that I’d use 30-meters more than 80. That was the only real decision that was required prior to sitting down and putting it together.

The Build

This antenna is probably the least frustrating assembly of anything I’ve done lately. I can’t remember anything else just kind of going together and working quite like this. The mast is really simple. There are clamps to put in place to make sure the segments don’t fall down. There are also spacers that need to be put over the mast to hold the elements in place. No stress there. In fact, even the base with all of its wingnuts and whatnot is just threading screws. The entire assembly of the hardware took less than 15 minutes (the clamps have screws and I have clumsy fingers).

The instructions include a cut chart. Not frequencies and wavelengths and cool math stuff. Just a list of “Cut it here” lengths and a couple of spools of wire. My daughter and I went onto the driveway and pulled out a tape measure. We measured the wire and cut it to length. Then I crimped fork connectors onto the ends and shrink-wrapped them. That’s it.

Stringing the elements to the mast is also very simple. The forks are attached to the base with wingnuts and then the elements are strung up through the various spacers. When they get through the last spacer, there is a tiny foldback into a loop that is then either taped or shrinkwrapped in place. Some shock cord is then run through the next available element, tied off, and a stopper knot put in place to keep the cord attached to the element. The element stays tight and nothing flops around in the wind.

With all of that done, it gets set up and guyed out. Again, my daughter came to my rescue and held the mast while I tied off the guy lines. With it up, I attached some radials and…that was it?

The approach the maker takes to radials seems controversial, I guess. Math supports him and physics is what it is. There is a minimum amount of wire you need for radials and then you hit a point of diminishing returns. I used enough to cover my space.

Huh… I mean… Wow.

With the antenna up and the radials deployed, I plugged it in to my RigExpert Stick Pro. I was kind of dumbstruck. All of the bands except 10-meters and 6-meters were at or below an SWR of 1.5:1 out of the box. Even 30-meters was practically 1:1. The 20-meter element is going to get some attention because it’s a bit long according to my measurements on the RigExpert but it is not a big deal. I’ll probably only take off an inch if I feel like it. In truth, the tuner will take care of that without any sweat at all.

To give some perspective, here are the AntScope2 readings for the bands covered by the antenna with NO TUNING adjustments. These are the elements installed as per the cut chart in the instructions.

Did I mention this thing tunes 2-meters like an antenna that should be able to use 2-meters? I’m sure it’s not great, but… Well, no I’m not sure of that. I will need to hook up a 2-meter rig and see what I can hit with it. Why not?

I will say, I had an Oh No! moment when I hooked it up to my IC-7100 to get on the air. With everything in place, I played with FT8 for a minute or two. But…the tuner didn’t kick in. The radio was happy enough with things as they were which was unexpected. Engaging the tuner manually got me down to 1.1:1 on my SWR meter and, well, that was that. The tuner is NOT doing a lot of work here. After I took it down and tuned up some of the elements, 10 and 6 improved quite a bit. All of the bands are quite healthy!

Current Thoughts

There are no final thoughts for this post. This is going to be something that I study for quite some time. I will say that my initial impressions are good. Incredible, really. I didn’t expect it to work this well without a lot of fiddling with things. But as Callum M0MCX says, it’s not like physics is going to change between his shop and my yard. The rules are the rules.

With new bands available to me, I’m going to spend some time on CW and FT8 and see how I do. I’ve already had some great contacts like Japan on 17-meters with 15 watts on FT8. I’m excited to get out and do some POTA hunting and up my game with my CW from home. I’m genuinely delighted with the out of the box performance of this antenna. It’s like starting the hobby all over again!

Getting Out To Support The Parks

One of my favorite things in amateur radio is obviously getting out to the parks and participating in POTA as an activator. It’s also pretty clear that I really love hanging out at Cuyahoga Valley National Park – US-0020. There’s really not much better on a Saturday than to bike out to the park and enjoy a couple of hours in the sun making contacts. Well, the thing is…

April Showers? No… Just More Grey Cold

My wife and I were planning to bike out to the park. We were slowly getting ready and started to look at the weather. The temperatures were in the 40s, it was overcast, and the winds were around 18 mph with 32 mph gusts. We looked at each other for a bit and realized that this was totally doable, but probably not much fun. So we changed plans. I would go out to the park on my own and activate for a bit and come home.

I moved my gear from my pannier to my backpack and headed out for the park. The sky was grey and there was a pretty stiff breeze. I went with the AX1 and set up my TR-35 to give it another go now that I had changed a ton of settings on the ATU-10. I was hoping to get a random wire in a tree if I had time.

With everything set up, I got on the air.

Anybody Home?

I started on 20-meters because I did want the activation to move along today. It was a bit cooler than I wanted it to be and with no sun, being outside felt like a continuation of winter. As I called CQ and even spotted myself, no one came back for a long, long time.

The band was crashing. There were flashes of static and a very high noise floor alternating with dead silence. It was enough to make me question the rig and the antenna. I did what I did last time and swapped the TR-35 for my IC-705. No dice.

At this point, I was giving the AX1 some serious side-eye. I reached into my bag and pulled out my 40-20-10 EFHW and my throw line. With no one around, I picked a branch in a tree that was perfectly positioned and got the line over it on the first try. This was a Batman level throw and there was no one to see it. Such is the life of a POTA Activator, I suppose.

This antenna is really the best in my collection in terms of efficiency. It never misses. So why were the bands still crashing and quiet? Why was 40-meters fading like I’ve never heard before? Oh, ya know, just luck. Later on Mastodon I would have my complaints confirmed by a panel of experts who were also frustrated by conditions.

Finally…

I did get my 10. I walked away with 12 contacts total in about 2 hours of activating. Not the worst Support Your Parks Weekend story I heard about Saturday, but not my favorite by far. By the time it was all said and done, my fingers were cold and I was pretty tired of sitting outside in the grey. I guess my mind really believes that April should be warmer and more inviting. I forget where I am sometimes.

QSO Map

Here it is. From the looks of it, it wasn’t too bad. But it didn’t feel that way getting there.

Final

Yes, any day outside is better than one spent inside. I’m just impatient for REAL SPRING and some more time with that elusive yellow orb in the sky. I know it’s coming. And I know that my TR-35 will continue to get a workout until I get a full activation with it. The conditions will change. Things will improve. Next weekend looks good so far.

Thanks for reading and 72!

The Weather Isn’t Why I Live Here

That’s not an entirely true statement. I’ve lived in places where the weather was far, far worse but there is something about having a bright, sunny, gorgeous looking day (as seen through the window of a house) and walking out into high 30s / low 40s temperatures. Not horrible, but when one is sitting still, not as comfortable as I might like.

Yes, I was back out at West Branch SP – K-1999 this past weekend. I’m chipping away at that kilo and I’m in the last 200 contacts. If there were to be a day where it was sunny and in the 60s, I’m sure I’d sit there until I got it done. But with high wind and cooler temps, well, an hour or so is just about enough time sitting still.

Saturday With The TR-45L

On Saturday, I decided to take the Penntek TR-45L out with me. I left any other options at home so that I’d force myself to get re-acquianted with this rig. I’m glad I didn’t have a fallback position as it forced me to reckon with some things.

Initially, I paired my Sunday Driver rig with the AX1. I don’t have a lot of practice with the Z-match tuner and I fiddled with it for quite a while. The rig wasn’t happy with the SWR. I didn’t have my QRP SWR meter with me (tactical error) so I couldn’t tell if the rig was really unhappy or just enjoyed blinking the angry red light at me. I know that we’re talking about less than 5 watts here, but I really like this radio and I don’t want it to be sad. It felt like a good idea to change it up.

My backpack always has my end-fed half-wave tuned to 40-20-10 and a random wire antenna along with my throw line ready to go in a single pouch. Why? Because in a pinch, the random wire will do what I need it to do and the end-fed has never failed me.

Note: I’m not saying the AX1 failed me. I’m saying I need more time with the tuner to figure out how to keep everyone happy.

I pitched the end-fed up into The Tree on The Branch and got back to it. This was a place where plugging the end-fed into the clamp mount I have for the AX1 was really handy. It keeps everying nicely positioned. I’m sure I’ll hear about some law of antenna physics I’m breaking here, but stuff worked. Everything was just over 1:1.

Working… Working…

I nabbed 14 contacts on 40-meters in about 30 minutes. It was pretty steady until it wasn’t. When 40 felt depleted, I moved over to 20-meters and picked up 16 more in short order. I did get a surprise contact from Alaska! NL7V was doing the heavy lifting on that contact for sure, but it’s in the log! It was a good spread of contacts and, as usual, the end-fed gave a stellar performance.

QSO Map

Here’s the QSO Map for the Saturday activation.

Sunday With My Buddy

Having been a bit humbled by my experience with the TR-45L and the realization that I’m going to need to do some backyard portable hunting to get a better feel for this rig, I took my old buddy the IC-705 out with me this time around. I decided to stick with the end-fed antenna just to see what I could see. I was not disappointed.

Setup took a little longer. On Saturday, I got the throw line up in one shot. Sunday, I looked like a blooper reel. There was a lot of throwing before I had the antenna in place. It got where it needed to be and things were set up and ready to go shortly thereafter.

QRN? What’s That?

I’m not re-opening the discussion. I’ve decided that QRN is all natural phenomena include geese and, in this case, really loud winds. I was set up and running along on 40-meters and about 15 minutes or so into my activation, the wind started howling. The trees were swaying. There were whitecaps on the water. I zipped up my coat and put on my watch cap and got back to it. It became a challenge to hear over it, but I kept going.

It’s probably an important thing to say yet again, but the average activator probably isn’t relaxing on a beach somewhere. At least, not if they are activating a park in NE Ohio in March. I appreciate the patience of the hunters who have no idea that they’re competing with the environmental noises at an activation site. Thanks for playing along! And yes, I do know more than CQ, my callsign, and “?”.

Surprise!

After depleting 40 and 20, I decided to give 10 a chance before I packed up. It was pretty quiet on that band. And when the IC-705 isn’t hearing something, it’s probably not able to be heard. But just as I was about to give up, I heard a very, very faint call. After much back and forth, I made out DL3AZ. Germany. On 5 watts into a wire in a tree. That’s the wild magic of radio. I got a 519 and I’ll take it all day long. After that contact, it was dead air and time to pack up before my fingers got too cold to function.

QSO Map

Here’s what the QSO Map looks like.

Final

I’m really looking forward to better weather, but until it gets here, I will keep heading out to the park 90 minutes at a time to enjoy some therapy in The Big Blue Room. It’s sometimes hard to remember what warm activations felt like – or ones where I would sweat! I know that they happen, but they feel like distant memories. They’ll be back soon enough.

Thanks for reading along and 72!

Ah That Beautiful Autumn Weather

It’s that time of the year where Northeast Ohio reminds us that it’s going to be cold and miserable for a bit. There was a good amount of rain on Saturday and that combined with a myriad of family activities made getting out for an activation impossible. Sunday was a new day and a different story. Sort of. There was still a concert to attend and the weather was still promising cold and wind, but there was enough time in the morning to get out to the park and rack up 10 contacts. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. In fact, The Plan called for introducing a ton of variables all at once. That plan changed when faced with weather – as it often does.

The general sketch was an activation at West Branch State Park – K-1999 where I would sit in my normal spot and tap away on my paddles. That didn’t work out well as the trees were dropping a lot of leftover water on the table, so I moved to the beach area where the situation was just different enough for me to think that I wouldn’t get wet. I was right! It’s worth saying again that I do miss the shelters, but to get to sit in a shelter I’d need to drive to the opposite end of the park on the other side of the reservoir to sit near the boat launch. That’s time I didn’t have.

Oh! And at the usual spot, there is now a sign letting folks know why things have changed!

The Big Variable – The Elecraft AX1

We’re going to take a side trip here for a minute to examine something that I think is a huge change to my operating for POTA. I recently acquired an Elecraft AX1 with the 40m element.

I am going to admit it: I’m a sucker for portable antennas for QRP. Especially those that have a very small footprint and make me even less conspicuous during an activation.

Let’s start with the usual assumptions. The first is that all ham radio involves compromises. There is no Perfect. There’s only Better. And Better means that we’re tyring to improve a specific aspect of performance. Most of the time, Better in one area comes at a cost somewhere else. We know this. All of us do. We fight it. We write about how things would be so perfect if only… and we know that it’s impossible. It’s the Ham Radio Circle Of Life.

For me, I tend to optimize for deployment/teardown and conspicuousness. That is to say, I want to be able to set up, have no one notice me, and tear down all with as little fuss as possible. That, in my experience, has led me to vertical antennas and ATUs. My SuperAntenna MP1 is amazing, but I have to spend some amount of time tuning it up every time I change bands. It’s not horrible, but it’s not as fast as a non-resonant antenna with a tuner. I’m giving up efficiency for deployment. The same can be said of my general aversion to EFHW antennas in trees. Getting a line in a tree isn’t a particularly onerous task, but it is obvious and might take a few throws. Tearing it down is usually what takes me forever. I do recognize that it is the right answer for efficiency and backpacking.

Well, it’s the answer for efficiency for sure. But this most recent experience has changed my perspective more than a little.

I’ve been watching various operators who do POTA and SOTA go into the field with the Elecraft AX1. This antenna, on first inspection, is ridiculous. It’s short. It packs up to nothing. It can’t possibly deliver. And yet, I see people completing activations with it and getting great signal reports. To be fair, that’s mostly using CW, but I’m not in the habit of operating Phone at 5-10 watts anyway.

After seeing the hundredth video of Thomas K4SWL using the AX1 in an activation, I decided that I would be the fool and part with my money. I got the AX1 with the tripod adapter and the 40m coil. Despite the rave reviews, I still didn’t think it would be all that great. It would probably end up on a shelf as an oddity that I would drag out for something in the backyard or for a demonstration for the Scouts.

On a Friday evening, I grabbed my IC-705 and the AX1 and went into the outback. By that I mean, out in the backyard on my patio. I got set up on the table and fired up WSJT-X so that I could beacon a little bit. The only mojo that I added in was the counterpoise that came with the AX1.

The first thing that I noticed was that on 20m at 5 watts running FT8 my trusted mAT-705+ tuner couldn’t come up with a solution. The IC-705 was reading about 1.1:1. I was stunned.

I felt bold and I started to transmit. Immediately, I landed a contact about 350 miles out at a very reasonable signal level for where I was, etc. The PSK Reporter was showing me popping up all over the place.

I added the coil and flipped over to 40m. I was definitely getting out. I didn’t grab a screenshot of PSK Reporter this time, but it was surprising. No contacts were collected, but again, at that time of evening there weren’t that many operators out there – or I wasn’t hearing them – one or the other.

Given the footprint of the antenna and how inconspicuous it is, I decided that getting it into the field was definitely the next step – though I would probably keep my larger vertical in the back of the Jeep just in case.

Back To The Activation

The plan for the Fall Support Your Parks activation was for 100% CW operation. I set up the AX1 and the IC-705 and got things moving.

The wind was bad. Really bad. 35mph gusts bad. I sat with my back to the water, which is not my preference, but I wanted to keep things out of the wind as best I could. The wind was bad enough that it was trying to push over the AX1. I had a bungee cord handy and wrapped it around the tripod and added a bit of weight. That kept things stable enough.

With things more or less stable, I started to call CQ. I got three stations back from Florida fairly quickly. Missouri followed. Things went out as far as Colorado, Minnesota, and even New Hampshire. I was working with 5 watts and a new antenna. It was surprising to see how well it worked.

Another much smaller change was using the VS-3 Bluetooth mic which provides the benefit of a wireless headphone. It comes with a single earpiece. I find that really nice as it leaves one ear open to hear things that are happening around me without having another earbud dangling and getting in the way. I’ve only ever used this mic for weely nets when I check in. I get great audio quality reports from it and tossing it into the bag made things a bit lighter in that it’s very small and keeps me from taking along a hand mic or a larger headset. The battery life on it is pretty good as well.

The hardware was working out pefectly, but the weather highlighed some things to think about. One of those being good gloves to be able to write and operate my paddles. Ohio was reminding me the entire time that it was going to be winter soon given the grey skies and temperatures in the low 40s F. It’s always fascinating to see the way time changes when the weather is poor. The two or three minutes between clusters of contacts can feel like hours. A thermos of hot coffee helps keep the chill at bay and the focus that comes with the contacts themselves help, of course.

CW Progress

I sat at about 12-14 wpm for this activation. Copying was much improved. I didn’t send nearly as many “”?”” as in previous activations. The only times when it was really necessary was when the wind got really, really bad. I apologize to my Hunters for that and appreciate your patience!

All in all, I felt pretty good about my performance. Definitely still room for improvement, but the practice never stops, does it? I’m plugging away to get up to 18 wpm. This winter will be a time for working diligently on head copying and speed. I will say again and again: getting on the air is the best practice. It’s a boost of confidence and it’s the whole reason we spend time hammering away learning the code.

The Conclusion

The AX1 is going to go in the kit with the VS-3 from now on. And, well, the AX1 is not a joke. It’s a serious antenna that gets out. Which is really, really wild to me for a lot of reasons. Look, I’m not Mr. Test Equipment Ham. I don’t go modeling ever piece of wire I toss into a tree. So far, everything I’ve done has been very much the Han Solo approach of dumb luck and card tricks when it comes to deploying in the field because deploying in the field is about adapting to what is available and not necessarily about what we’d like. Sure, there are fundamentals and there’s lots of math, but the kind of precision we see on a calculator is rarely present with a wire in a tree or at a campground on a hillside.

I’m glad that I’ve added it to the kit. It’s not the only variable I was going to introduce, so I’ll save that for the next activation. I’ll keep it very Secret Squirrel for now.

Here’s what the activation looked like on the QSO Map: