First, let me give my most humble apologies to the THOUSAND or so people
who called me and I could not hear you. Explanation follows:
As I am writing this, I am scratching the poison ivey I picked up from
the two weekends I spent putting out a beverage toward Europe and
building the full size 160 meter ground plane with the vertical element
supported by a helium balloon. I bought a couple of the mylar balloons
from Fair Radio Sales and mounted the base of the antenna at about 85
feet. I stretched out the radials and put the helium in the balloon
from a rented helium cylinder from a party store.
The Fair Radio Sales surplus helium balloons are really neat They are
shaped something like a manta ray with wings that give lift to keep the
balloon from blowing over as far. A 80 cu ft cyllinder of helium was
plenty to inflate the balloon and to refill it on the second evening. I
used a little over 1/2 of the helium in the tank. The balloons have a
ring to attach the antenna line to.
I used some weedeater line and a nylon line to tie to the 1/4 wave
vertical element. I launched the thing right before the contest. The
SWR was perfect! The noise level on the vertical was 30 over 9! The
noise level on the dipole at 65 feet and on the beverage was 5 over 9!
I struggled through the contest with everyone I could hear telling me
there were several people calling. When I took down the balloon at the
end of the contest the noise level on the beverage went from 5 over 9 to
S-1 to 2!
The best I can figure is the plastic balloon was static charging in the
wind and the antenna was transmitting the noise to the other antennas!
Boy will I be glad to do a single band 10 in ARRL instead of 160! What
an experience!
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