Jack,

Just some comments. I think you have the right kind of antenna with the fan
dipoles. You say it is lower than the house; can't you prop up at least some
of it to the height of the house, or a couple of feet more. Have you
determined that the radio puts out the same power on SSB (whistle) as when
you tune up (on CW?) ?

I made most of my early contacts during contests, by answereing calls from
people who did not have big pileups. If they hear you, they will come back
to you. I did get my SSB DXCC with a Junior beam at 28 feet.

To trim a multiple dipole like yours, you have to trim the lowest frequency
first, and work your way up. I have a 40/17/12 antenna like that, and this
is the only way I got it to convege in EZNEC.

Tam/WB2TT
"Jack Twilley" wrote in message
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"Tam" == t-tammaru Tam writes:

Tam Jack, Have you determined that the radio is actually putting out
Tam 100W? The light bulb test should give some indication.

I have an MFJ Versa Tuner II which has a power meter. It's not
laboratory certified, but the needle does go all the way up to 100
when I tune up and transmit.

Tam When I first got licensed on HF I went through a bunch of
Tam antennas at less than 20 feet with essentially 0 results. For
Tam starters, unless you are DX, nobody will talk to you on 75 or 20m
Tam SSB unless you are 5-9.

This disappoints me, and I really hope it's not true.

Tam I made my first contact half way across the country on 15 m by
Tam using a 3 el 6 meter beam at 12 feet (In the attic of a 1 story
Tam house). Try getting out during a contest, but you really want to
Tam get the wire at least 30 feet up. I don't think you mentioned
Tam what the antenna is, or what bands you have tried.

I can't get the wire any higher than it is right now at this current
location. This is pretty much the best I can do, and this little
antenna already totally fills my yard and the yards of each of my
neighbors (with their permission). It's a multiband fan dipole with
three pairs of legs, cut for 40, 20, and 10.

My current goal is to acquire a noise bridge and see where the antenna
resonates, then trim the antenna as necessary until it resonates in
the right places. After that, I'll look into feedline length
modifications as necessary. Hopefully those two approaches will
resolve my current issue.

Jack.
- --
Jack Twilley
jmt at twilley dot org
http colon slash slash www dot twilley dot org slash tilde jmt slash
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