ER Mag HB 833A

[flintstone mop]

In this month's ER is a beautiful HB cathode modulated transmitter using, what looks, like a single 833A. Very nice cabinet and viewing window.

Fred

[Mike/W8BAC]

Yup, That's Discone Dan, W8NWF in Whitehall Michigan. Dan is a regular on the DX 60 and Multi Elmac nets. The new rig sounds sweet and the 80 meter Discone puts it over the top.

[W9GT]

I heard about the article, but haven't received my ER yet.  Dan did a beautiful job on this transmitter and it should present some ideas and encouragement to those who might want to build a rig, but are scared off by the high cost or scarcity of mod iron.  This cathode modulated rig sounds great and straps on 75M!

Kudos to Dan for a great project and a super signal with his "Cathode Crusher".

Maybe we will hear some others on soon with similar rigs.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[Mike/W8BAC]

Don't be disappointed Jack, It isn't an article exactly. Just a nice picture in the photo section.

[W9GT]

Well, hopefully Dan will follow that up with an article about the details. 

73,  Jack, W9GT

[flintstone mop]

OK what's this about a Discone antenna???
Something new??? 5dB gain.
I'll have to Google that.

Fred

[Jeff W9GY]

Here's a photo Dan sent me during the early testing phase of the project

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

LOL. No such thing. No single vertical will have any gain other than games using dBi and such. Pure BS.

OK what's this about a Discone antenna???
Something new??? 5dB gain.
I'll have to Google that.

Fred

[K6JEK]

I really wanted to get the 80M discone working when I was a member of the Monterey Bay Radio club at the former Fort Ord MARS station but I could never screw up the courage to climb that big pole then try to work on the connections while reaching over the connection plate at the top.  Here's a picture of the beast:

http://www.n6ij.org/images/new_0803/80Mdiscone.jpg

See what I mean?

From what I've read, the magic of the discone is extreme bandwidth, not gain.

[K3ZS]

The military used them for their UHF aircraft ground stations, they covered the 200-400MHz band.   Of course they were much smaller.

[W4EWH]

From what I've read, the magic of the discone is extreme bandwidth, not gain.

That's exactly right: if you took a log-periodic antenna, and rotated its boom 360 degrees, the path that the end of each element follows through the rotation would form the outline of a discone.

Bill W1AC

[W1EUJ]

If I rotate a yagi on its axis, you form a tower-of-hanoi stack of discs, flopped over.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

That is one fine looking rig!  I hope they do a write up about it, I bet it will be good reading.