Hrd On 160 Last Nite Nov.12 - Tyler & California

[Tom WA3KLR]

I was just listening around on 160 meters late last night after having been on 1890 kHz. AM earlier in the evening.  The WWV K index = 0, conditions seemed good.

I heard Tyler KA0KA on 1980 kHz. AM with a group of Tennessee fellows.  No, Don K4KYV was not present.  Tyler is in northwest Tennessee now.  He is having a metal shop start to produce boxes for his r.f sampler and AM monitor designs.

Later, just before midnight eastern time, I found some weak LSB activity on 1997 kHz.  So I listened for a while to see where they were.  Turned out to be Californians - K6AY, K6RPF, and W6LZV.  All were Q5 but K6AY was the weakest, barely Q5.  Soon a WA6 in Kentucky called them.  The weakest one here, K6AY was the only one that could hear the Kentucky station, a fellow originally from CA. 

K6AY happened to mention he was barefoot and was using a half-wave dipole.  No mention of set-up by the other CA stations.  I was listening on my Drake R-7 receiver and end-fed half wave @ 40' avg. ht.

[w3jn]

I finished up a 160 tuner last night and after messing around with the SWR analyzer to get the taps right, there was nobody on 160 to talk to    Plus, there's a small arcing problem under modulation peaks I need to attend to (vacuum variable shaft is arcing to one of the setscrews on the shaft coupler)

[ve6pg]

...YA..160 WAS GUD SUNDAY NITE...LOTSA GUD SIGS ON 1890...LOOKING FWD TO THE UP COMING SEASON....TIM...SK..

[flintstone mop]

Thanks Tom
You gave me a little more to the recipe to try and make 160M go beyond the 'ole Mississippi. I guess the K index indicates how quiet it's going to be on Top Band.
Fred

[w3jn]

I heard you on the air last nite, Tim, while I was working on the tooner dicussing the problems you had with your Apache.  Strapping signal near Baltimore.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Just talked to Johnny/JN on 160 about a 40 minutes ago. It was his maiden voyage on 160. The tuner and antenna (a 75 meter dipole) was working great. He was near or at full scale on the 51J-4 RF Input meter during most of his transmissions! That's a big signal. Congrats John. Hope to hear you on 160  :ooften over the winter. You and VW can have short dipole strap contests.

[WD8BIL]

Ya.... nice QSO Steve,John and Don.

Johnnie you were a good 9+15 most of the time. When ya signed out the band hand changed and u dropped a bit but still perfectly readable here in Ohio.

Good job !!

[w3jn]

Was fun, too bad I had to leave.  I was happy to work Don KYV I think for the first time, having had several eyeball QSOs with him at Dayton but I can't remember ever working him on the air.

I'm really amazed at how well that antenner works on 160.  I fully expected to be PW.

It's a 75M fan dipole fed with open wire at about 30 feet, and the tooner is the K1JJ design using a 35 uH edgewound silver plated plate inductor out of a CCA1000 xmitter, 1" wide silver strap going to the 15KV vacuum variable, and a 1/4"X3/8" copper strap for the single turn input link.  Using about 300 watts, about a 3 minute transmission raised the coil temperature barely perceptibly.  The output taps were as low as I could get 'em while the capacitor taps were at the extreme ends of the coil.  Betchya there's a LOT of circulating current in that tank coil!

[WA1GFZ]

John, Great information. What is the configuration of the fan..how many conductors?
Sounds like what I will end up with at the beach place. 8;00PM  1945 tonight gray hair net usually a pile of buzzards up and down the coast.

[Tom WA3KLR]

I listened for the California guys on 1997 LSB last night again about 11:45 p.m. and I heard them but they were much weaker than the night before.  They were signing off at that point, 8:45 p.m. their time.

That's one disappointing thing about some of the 160 activity.  It seems to end early in the evening.

[k4kyv]

That's one disappointing thing about some of the 160 activity.  It seems to end early in the evening.

I have noticed that for years.  They seem to roll up the sidewalks on the band before 9 PM.  Late in the evening I often hear little or no activity, but when I do happen to hear a station, it indicates that propagation is excellent.

I am beginning to notice some of the same on 75.  Activity used to go past midnight even on week nights, but lately the band may be nearly deserted after about 10 PM.

We usually have dinner sometime between 7 and 8 PM, and I have a real knack for the nicad effect if I try to get on the  air shortly afterwards.  But when I get my second wind about 9:30 PM, often there is no-one to talk to on 160 or 75.

At least we're now off stupid-ass DST, leaving a few hours of darkness between sundown and the time most people go to bed.

[K1JJ]

It's a 75M fan dipole fed with open wire at about 30 feet, and the tooner is the K1JJ design using a 35 uH edgewound silver plated plate inductor out of a CCA1000 xmitter, 1" wide silver strap going to the 15KV vacuum variable, and a 1/4"X3/8" copper strap for the single turn input link.  Using about 300 watts, about a 3 minute transmission raised the coil temperature barely perceptibly.  The output taps were as low as I could get 'em while the capacitor taps were at the extreme ends of the coil.  Betchya there's a LOT of circulating current in that tank coil!

Hey, glad to hear it worked out, John! 

As you know, lengthening or shortening the feedline will permit tapping the feeders out on the coil farther. You just happened to hit a low impedance point.

How 'bout a picture of the tuner?  When guys axe about building one it makes good fodder to show the creations of others...  

I always get a kick outa seeing other people's "interpretations", "renditions"  "versions".... caw mawn.

T

[WA1GFZ]

I would think series tuning would be easier but require 2 caps. I simulated a series tuner that took less L.

[w3jn]

The tooner iss pretty ugly - I used some old assembly that had a rack panel on the front with 2 holes drilled for meters and a bunch of smaller ones for switches.  The bottom, sides, and back are Bakelite; it had a bakelite top also but I cut that apart to use for mountings for the vacuum variable.  Still has the "FREE" sticker on it from the hamfest 

The fan dipole is 2 wires on each leg; spread about 2-3' at the ends.

All in all it cost about $15 - the chassis assembly was free, the tank coil and silver strap was about $10 (and I still have a bunch more parts and a huge 75 uH tank coil left from that bag of parts) and $5 for the vacuum variable.  It works well and I ain't gonna mess with it!

[K1JJ]

I would think series tuning would be easier but require 2 caps. I simulated a series tuner that took less L.

Yep, true.

This tuner design is best for higher impedance loads and feeders.  

If someome made this tuner with TWO floating vac variables, a simple configuration change with jumpers cud easily put it into the series tune mode, optimized for lower impedance loads.  That wud be a worthwhile mod if one used the same open wire fed ant on many bands.

T

[WA1GFZ]

John,
When I was a kid at home I had a fan Vee. It was a lot easier to tune. I also had about 3 feet spacing at the ends. The tuning worked over a wider frequency range.
Well if the tuner stays cool then it must be transfering power so John may have enough strap in the inductor. 

[w3jn]

It's an absolutely beautiful inductor, silver plated, edgewound 1/8" thick by about 3/8" strap and about5" in diameter.

[W2VW]

John, Congrats. You have a Ford tuner and I a Chevy. Same ant. here. I heard you on just after 9 PM. Not bad! Can you measure antenna current at the tuner output? Too bad about Wilkes never getting on again.....

[K1JJ]

It's an absolutely beautiful inductor, silver plated, edgewound 1/8" thick by about 3/8" strap and about5" in diameter.

Did you solder on permanant coil taps or are you using Sears clips?

T

[WA1GFZ]

I would use a mechanical connection on a high RF current point. Why trash the silver with lead.
I got my QRO lessons from W1GUC (SK) who built electron beam welders and gave me my first large RF band switch. He gave me a mil rig to gut and pointed out all mechanical connections in the final tank.

[w3jn]

THe output taps are regular ol' Gator clips.  I figured (incorrectly so as it turns out) that the output taps would probably be at a high impedance point and a little bit of contact resistance wouldn't hurt there.  When I tried it on my other 75M antenner the taps WERE at a high impedance point.  At any rate, there's no heating going on at the gator clips.

The capacitance taps are nice silver plated clips that were meant to mate with that particular coil.  They slide onto the edgewound coil very neatly.  I used the nice clips there (I only had two) because I figured that's where the high circulating current would be.

I have a nice empty meter hole in the front panel and I suspect one of the RF ammeters I have lying around would fill that hole very nicely, but I haven't measured the antenner current yet.

[Vortex Joe - N3IBX]

Johhny Novice - W3JN, Good hearing you on 160M last night! You put in a good signal here in the Filthydelphia area.

Hope to mod-u-sooner-than-later again. We had a good group on 1885KC with you, Mike(y) W3SLK,Bob W2Zed-M,Timmy WA1HnyYellar, Terry W2PFY and others.

Regards,
           Joe N3IBX