I recently moved into this house, actually, on the first of this month
we moved in. Last week out of boredom, I setup my FT 857D. It sat on
the desk for three days before I finally decided that I wanted to
listen to something other than the Mount Mitchell Repeater (145.190).
I took a 500 foot spool of stranded wire, (invisible fence wire) and
tossed it over a few branches and stung it out about 70-80 feet or so.
The spool, still attached, is sitting on top of a stack of firewood
about 4 feet off the ground but the wire is run from about 10-20 feet
or so. The wire tunes up 30, 40, 20 and 80 meters, but with TVI
generated with 80 meters, and the power supply hums on 20 meters. 40
meters tunes up clean and easily.

For the past three days, I have been operating CW on 40 mostly, but a
little on 80 after TV hours. Today, I decided to try my hand at 30
meters. The wire tuned up well, I dropped the power to minimum for
QRP (abt 5 watts) and I sent out a few CQ Strings on 10.110 until a
QSO faded in from the background, so I moved up 1 and tried again.
The third sequence brought on a surprise. The alarm, for which we
have no access code, sounded off nice and loud.

By the time someone found the control box and dug it out from under
all the boxes we have yet to unpack, I clipped off the speaker from
the alarm at the ceiling. I managed to acquire a real nice 12v 5 AH
SLA battery that registers 13.9v and a speaker that must have been
made industrial tough. I haven't tested it four audio quality, but I
will.

In the meantime, I took the 8-foot ground rod I had placed by my
window two days ago, and pounded it 3.5 feet into the ground before
being called to supper. I ran about 4 foot of #8 solid copper wire to
the rod from the back of the tuner. I checked the tuning of 30
meters, and where I did have a minimal match, I now had a bad match.
I tuned it to the 10.111 where I was, and noticed the noise level had
dropped. I tested tuning on 20 and 40 meters. On 40, it is about the
same, very easy to tune. On 30 meters, where my power supply had been
humming when I tuned it, the supply no longer hummed during the tuning
phase. I got no RFI on the TV with 30 or 40, but no one was watching
it when I tested 20 meters.

I just tested tuning the wire on various bands. It is difficult to
tune on 6, 10 and 12 meters, ok on 15, and tunes easily down through
80 less 60 mtrs which I didn't try. 160 meters tunes, but it is
really sharp making it difficult. When I get time, I'll make a ground
rod driver and finish driving the rod into the ground.


73 for now,
--
73 for now
Buck, N4PGW

www.lumpuckeroo.com

"Small - broadband - efficient: pick any two."

Buck,
Use some of that 500 foot spool of wire and run a few radials instead
of the rod. Works just as well, if not better, Same amount of 'work'
involved though, just different.
All 'lop-sided' antennas need a ground to be 'happy'. Putting a
ground in dirt usually works better than using the house wiring for a
ground (RF wise), as you found out.
- 'Doc


A ground should be above 'clothes-line' height, or below where the
lawn mower will catch it. After that, almost anything will work, sort
of...

In article ,
Buck wrote:

I recently moved into this house, actually, on the first of this month
we moved in.

snipped for brevity....

73 for now,

Well you now know that the saying, "Ground is not Ground, the World
Around" has real meaning for your new QTH. RF Grounds are different than
Lightning Grounds or Electrical Grounds, and NEVER should the three be
confused, or understood to be non-Mutually Exclusive.

--
Bruce in alaska
add path after fast to reply

Thanks, For a permanent antenna, i would do that, but this is just for
a temporary solution until i raise a real antenna.



On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 07:08:30 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Buck,
Use some of that 500 foot spool of wire and run a few radials instead
of the rod. Works just as well, if not better, Same amount of 'work'
involved though, just different.
All 'lop-sided' antennas need a ground to be 'happy'. Putting a
ground in dirt usually works better than using the house wiring for a
ground (RF wise), as you found out.
- 'Doc


A ground should be above 'clothes-line' height, or below where the
lawn mower will catch it. After that, almost anything will work, sort
of...

--
73 for now
Buck, N4PGW

www.lumpuckeroo.com

"Small - broadband - efficient: pick any two."