Sunday, August 30, 2015

On 30 Meters

Built a 1/4 wave ground mounted vertical antenna for 30 Meters.   There are 4 radials 23.2 feet and the vertical element started off the same but it ended up a foot or  two two shorter when I tuned it.    At 10.1 MHz I ended up with a VSWR of 1.1 : 1  and the TS690s antenna tuner liked it rewarding me with 80 Watts of CW power.  

 30 Meters was quite appealing to me...

- Great propagation throughout the solar cycle
- Its CW and narrow band digital from 10.100 MHz all the way to 10.150 MHz .... all 50 kHz of it!
-1/4 Wave is 23.2 feet ... small antennas.  

Made 2 contacts ...




 So the new to me TS690s is a real gem.  Best receiver I have ever had.   It goes all the way down to a few hundred KHz and has continuous coverage!     I have to beef up the power supply a bit.  The radio requires 20 am / 12V and I have a supply that is providing that but it gets quite warm.   I have a home brew supply that I think is big enough but I want to burn it in for a bit before using it.     I am still in the process up reorganizing the shack ... lots of stuff goes ,  it will be really cool when I am done.