Tag: FD-3

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Last contest it became clear I need just another change on the antenna part of my setup. Since last year my neighbor has completely revamped his attic and situated his study room there. That is bad news for me because now he’s only 2 meters underneath my antenna wire. His PC monitor really dislike HF and starts striping with even the slightest signals (even 5 watts). Of course we can replace his monitor with a more HF-proof type. But an antenna wire this close will always produce some RFI.
So the idea is to move the antenna away from his attic. Fortunately our house has two chimneys, one on each side. The house is 6 meters wide (some 19 feet) so using the other chimney, the antenna wire will be further away. Hopefully my other neighbor doesn’t have anything HF-sensitive on her attic!

I’ve had quite a few antenna setups in the past years. Started with a mono-band wire dipole for 20m. Then a multi-band dipole for 40m, 20m and 10m. It was a little too much wire in the air. Then tried a combination of a Cobwebb antenna (10 – 20m) and a horizontal loop for 40, 80 and 160m. The Cobwebb worked great but I got a little tired of answering the question about the “cloth hanger” on my roof. The horizontal loop worked great for Europe, but it was almost impossible to work DX on it. So those went away. Then I put up a Fritzel FD-4. Great antenna but it was a little too long for my garden. I had to wrap the wire around my garden what wasn’t too nice to look at (according to “she who must be obeyed”). I went for the shorter version of the FD-4: the Fritzel FD-3. The original commercial one to be exact. Also works great! Missing 80m capabilities where more serious then I hoped for. Also: my guess was the Off Center Fed (OCF)-design of the antenna maybe produced some of the RFI-problems at my neighbor.
I changed the Fritzel FD-3 for a homemade ZS6BKW as suggested by Wilko PA3BWK and inspired on Fred PA3YH‘s antenna project. That works kind of OK (couldn’t test it properly on 20m and up yet) but it didn’t resolved any of the RFI-problems with the neighbor which I had hoped for.

I kind of like the ZS6BKW-inspired design of 2x 13,75 meter wire fed with 10 meters of open wire feed line. The mismatch can be fixed with an antenna coupler like a Icom AH-4, Kenwood AT-300/KAT-1 or a SGC-product.

Hopefully the weather allows me to move the antenna this weekend so I’ll be ready for the next contest.

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Had a great time participating the ARRL Roundup RTTY 2014! Began with a good start, quit a few runs on 40m. Then switching to 80m, the ZS6BKW works excellent! With 261 Q’s in the log I went for bed around 0:00 local time. Again in the shack this morning around 6:30 am. I was doing all right when 20m opened up. Around 9:30 am I got another message from the neighbor 🙁 Again RFI in his pc monitor. So the ZS6BKW did help against that.. So I was forced to enter the QRP-section, running 5 watts. I must say, I’m amazed how many Q’s are still possible with only 5 watts. You have to call a few times more, but most of what you hear, you’re able to work!
Just turning off the power of my nice hand warm TS-590 (10:00 pm). 400 Q’s in the log, 45 DXCC and 26.000 points. Don’t you just love RTTY?

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zs6bkw-450
After earlier issues with my Fritzel FD-3 and the fact it is not able to do 80m (which is a serious handicap with most contests) made me search for yet another antenna solution.
Wilko PA3BWK (from who I did loose the division league) dropped by te other day. He did inspect my setup and advised me to use a ZS6BKW antenna. My problem with not being able to stretch out twice the same length of wire from both sides of my chimney could be solved when I let the feeding point float in the air and put one wire over the mast.
That way I’m able to put 2x 13,75 meter and feed it with 12,2 meters of 450-ohm ladder line.
Fred PA3YH sponsored me with some left over antenna wire from his antenna project and I found some open ladder line from one of my earlier own antenna projects.
I’m still optimizing the new setup. I put down my beautiful white mast for now and put up a slightly longer mast for the ZS6BKW. That means my 2m/70cm Diamond is down for the moment. But I guess not for long.
This time of year isn’t very nice to do antenna experiments. Lots of rain, strong winds and it’s cold. But I can’t wait for spring, that way I loose to many Q’s!