Munin, Keeper of Lore

Heh, over on birbsite, been talking about antenna theory.

Now -there- is a black art.

For the record, receive antennas don't necessarily need optimization - it's not any big deal if they're cut too long, and, in fact, there's "long wire" designs that are -meant- to be as long as possible.

Transmitting antennas are where the voodoo shows up, though. Getting them to resonate -just so- is "fun"

Jul 7, 2017 at 9:11pmWeb
Show threadrabbitJul 8, 2017
@munin To be fair I've made some long wires *too* long and ended up with directional gain at low frequencies like Beverages. But we're talking 1/8th mile long
Show threadrabbitJul 8, 2017
@munin There's a lot of woods up here in Maine and spools are cheap. Now that I think about it that one may be closer to 1/5 or 1/4 mile. Dang. It's up about 20 feet, maybe 75 in some places.
Show threadrabbitJul 8, 2017
@munin The S/N is fantastic but I have to put a resistor on it for everything but my mil-spec radios or the front ends get swamped. It ended up directional roughly over the pole so I get a lot of Canadian, polar, asian and middle east coverage (good for my purposes) but it's deaf to the west coast surprisingly
Show threadMunin, Keeper of LoreJul 8, 2017

@rabbit Yeah, out here on the west coast I'm generally pretty good to get asia/pacific [but STILL can't get New Zealand to admit they hear me] and....that's about it.

My elmer on another hillside can get Europe pretty reliably on [usually] 17m, though, 'cuz he's got a beam and the right view.

Show threadMunin, Keeper of LoreJul 8, 2017
@rabbit Yeah, that's a liiiiittle bit longer than most folks will be deploying ;-)