I have been issued a new call sign; I decided to drop one of two "K "letters I had in my call, sent a request and became K4MJA instead of KK4MJA -- today by FCC's decree. The former callsign KK4MJA will gradually disappear.
Out of all antennas I installed and used at my (antenna-restricted) OTH the one I liked instantly was MFJ "hamstick" dipole(s): the size, the ease of installation, the way it could be rotated manually -- fiberglass mast I use allows it -- and how the signal/noise changes with the rotation. There were problems with the hamstick dipoles though: they turned out not very good radiators, the one for 20m is better than for 40m, but generally all poor and lossy. The little modeling I've done confirmed it. Also, hamstick dipoles I have are low power (125W max).
So...I went on the quest for finding a rotatable dipole which
(1) would fit in my small patio,
(2) could be installed on the fiberglass mast I have and
(3) could handle at least five hundred watts of (recently installed in the shack) Elecraft KPA500.
I came back last week with MFJ-1775 multiband (10-15-20-40m) rotatable dipole, assembled it, tuned and tested during the 2018 ARRL DX SSB Contest this weekend. Here are my impressions:
Elecraft KPA500 in operating position (center left)
I live in a condo unit; permanent ham antennas prohibited by the HOA's rules. All of my HF antennas (and I have many) are hidden or temporary. That's what I've done so far:
After 6 Month of leisure hammimg I received my first badge at QRZ.com:
"This award is available to any QRZ member whose Logbook on QRZ.com contains at least one confirmed contact from each of 100 unique Maidenhead grid squares."
USA, Canada, Caribbean, South America and some contacts across the pond...not much actually. I will be trying my new amp, hopefully it will help to get out of the noise on the other side. At least, that's the hope.
At my present QTH, the antennas are prohibited by the rules of my HOA. That is, "no permanent visible antennas allowed"On top of this grim issue, I also have very limited space for any HF antenna. I have 2 small patios and the attic, which is also very small, about 21ft/7 m wide and 18ft/6m deep, and the height is on low side, crawl space for the most part. Nevertheless, I managed to install several wire antennas in the attic (40-10m multiband doublet, 17m monoband moxon), and strung the similar doublet along the outer roof edge. I also installed a 35ft/10m Max-Gain fiberglass push-up pole in one of the patios and used it to bring up different light antennas, like "hamstick" dipoles or MFJ-17754 2 band (20/40m) dipole. It all worked somewhat, some better then the others, all depending on the propagation and the location of the distant station. DX-wise, I had most success with MFJ-2220 "hamstick" dipole at 35ft on the fiberglass pole.
Until recently, I had no vertical antennas and was determined to try them one day. Vertical antenna is a good idea if the space for the installation is very limited and it has to go up and down promptly and with little effort. At the same time, not all vertical antennas are very good radiators: first, they usually radiate equally in all directions, having no directivity without additional measures, like setting up a system of vertical antennas with special feeding arrangements, meaning the signal in the far field will be lower when compared to a beam antenna or even to a dipole; second, a good ground system or, for elevated installation, a system of radials required for better radiation efficiency (and I have little space for that). Nevertheless, in Dec 2017 I acquired and installed 2 vertical antennas:
Here are my impressions after a short test, starting Dec 24th and until the last weekend:
Been a new ham, I build all kind of antennas; in a process of doing this I accumulated long list of internet references I am sharing below. I will be updating it, deleting old/outdated/not important references and adding new. Due to my present QTH the main focus is compact/limited space antennas, but the list is not strictly limited to this subject. It is a bit chaotic as it originates from the text file I have been dumping my findings to for many month, but proven to be useful, so here it is:
last updated Mar 01, 2018
HF Beacons, transmission schedule
https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/index.html#transmission
Isotron compact 40m antenna
http://isotronantennas.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_4&products_id=4
Hentenna
http://www.hamuniverse.com/hentenna.html
http://www.hamuniverse.com/6mhenk5uss.html
http://www.hamuniverse.com/iw6dfw%202m%20and%2070cm%20hentenna%20project_DRAFT.pdf
Wire
https://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/category-s/260.htm
http://thewireman.com/index.html
Antenna tuners
http://www.sgcworld.com/store/index.html
LDG antenna tuner
http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/17/49/4
the one with batteries: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/17/9/1
Ugly balun
http://www.hamuniverse.com/balun.html
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-8x
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-pl259
