TT:
I know it's anti-climactic now, but the Skyhawk is up in the air. Ed
N3HXQ came by this afternoon and we managed to haul up the antenna, spin it
on its axes a couple of times to position it (it was leaning against the
tower nose up, remember?) and get it bolted onto the pre-installed mast
plate. What a sense of accomplishment finally seeing the mounting nuts
slide into the keyhole slots in the mast plate!
After I hung the home-made coax balun under the boom with tape (I'll
fix it later), and taped up the connector, I hurried down the tower to plug
in the coax and test drive the whole shebang. Mr. MFJ says the SWR at the
shack end of 135 feet of RG-213 was as follows:
14.001 1.3 21.001 1.6 28.006 1.6
14.300 1.0 21.335 1.2 28.430 1.2
14.350 1.0 21.450 1.2 28.766 1.3 28.990
1.1 29.120 2.0.
(There is a second, lower SWR dip on the 10M array at 28.990. Go
figger. Also, these numbers show it was a good idea for me to buy this
idiot-resistant antenna - no element length adjustments possible, SWR specs
were met.)
As far as signal reports are concerned, I have nothing to compare
against other than my experience with my 80M horizontal loop (a moment of
silence....) So I won't draw any conclusions other than to say it seems to
play. I received good reports from a few NA hams (S9+ w/100W) but I
haven't done the F/B or F/S thing yet. In due time. There appears to be
no interaction with the D40 dipole 12 feet above the Skyhawk, elements
parallel.
Thanks again to N3RR for his mentoring during this project and to 'RR,
N3HXQ and KO6GA for their labor in the construction phase.
Last few items remaining are .....? Hey - guess what? I'm done!
73 de
Gene Smar AD3F
P.S. I know - I'll never get back to that balun again!
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