I have dug out my wire dipole (made from coaxial cable), this was cut from the coaxial cable, which is currently set aside, in order to attach it to a choke balun, the last small piece of insulation has been removed from the centre of the dipole and both ends attached to a terminal block each, This will be put into service once the choke balun has been built, and if found to work it will be used as the main antenna, thus saving me money.
I found some scrap twin-and-earth cable in the attic, sadly though a lot of it is still running to the sealed-up conduits so it therefore is not usable, and because it’s in close proximity to cables that are in service there is a risk that I could cut the wrong cable, something I wish to avoid, a cheaper option is to use steel-cored washing line
I have never been able to see how good a performer the wire dipole actually is, though when I had it draped down the side of the building at my previous QTH, it worked relatively well, although it lacked the choke and I was getting feeder radiation, revealed by slight changes in the SWR reading when moving the cable during transmit, the dipole at the time was against a stone wall in a vertical arrangement, in it’s new duties it will be in an inverted v arrangement, the terminal blocks being the connection between the choke and the antenna elements.
Once it’s up and I have managed to get the SWR to an acceptable level across all 80 channels, the gateway will be connected to it and the testing phase can begin.
I hope to be on the air very soon
73 de 26CT730
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