Preparing the antennas

To prepare for the 2011 PACC, we did quite some work on our antennas. During the fielddays of our local radio club we focussed on the extended double zepp, which was hard to tune. so we played arround with the length of the feedline and performed measurements using the MiniVNA. We concluded that the antenna was too long, we will shorten it when setting it up for the PACC.

We also completely revised the Hy-Gain 12AVQ (originally built in 1970!), which was our only antenna for 10, 15 and 20m so far. All plastic parts were replaced, dirt was removed, new stainless steel bolts, nuts, washers and clamps, new tuned radials (the shorther ones extended with ropes to get the right corner), etc. We retuned the antenna using my MiniVNA. The antenna is now ready to be used again for many years.

During autumn we built a 5/8 wave vertical for 20m. More activity on the higher bands is to be expected due to more geomagnetic activity of the sun. Therefore we need more antenna’s on 10/15/20m, also because we want to start using a multiplier station this time. Being on the air with 2 transceivers also requires proper filtering, so we started building RF filters (design K1TTT).