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Old December 11th 16, 07:34 AM posted to aus.radio.amateur.misc,rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.info
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Default [FOAR] Coax vertical dipole and other musings ...


Foundations of Amateur Radio

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Coax vertical dipole and other musings ...

Posted: 10 Dec 2016 09:00 AM PST


Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I celebrated my sixth birthday,
no not that one, the one that reminds me when I first became licensed as a
Radio Amateur. It caused me to reflect on what I've done with my license
and what I've learned and where I'm heading. A recurring theme in my
Amateur life is one of upgrading. Not a month goes by when someone makes a
comment about my license status. As you might know, I hold the entry level
license in Australia, the Foundation License as it's called. Other
countries call theirs different things, but the aim of this license type is
to introduce new entrants into the hobby and for me it's done that in
spades. If you've listened to some of my previous mutterings and musings,
or if you've listened to all of them, heading for 300 now, you'll have
noticed that it's rare that I'm not talking about something I learned,
something new, or something that interests me that I've found and I want to
share with the community. This quest for knowledge, learning and curiosity
is something that I've always had and I'm sure I'm not alone with those
traits. It occurred to me that my newly minted Amateur License achieved
exactly what it intended to, Introduce me to Amateur Radio. It did more
than that. It set me on a path that I'm travelling down today where I'm
learning a new thing most weeks and telling others about it. I don't yet
fully grasp the difference between an NPN and a PNP transistor, nor do I
understand the workings of a Valve to the point where I can explain it to
you, but the truth of the matter is that I haven't had the need to, or at
this stage the curiosity to. That's not to say that a day will come when I
do want to know. So here's the thing. Would you rather I have the highest
level of license, having passed my test, cramming for my exam, guessing
answers on a multiple-choice form, or would it be better if I came to know
and understand the body of work that makes up the foundations of our hobby?
As an aside, I have taken a mock test at some point. If I recall, I managed
a score of 75% or so, might have been higher, but it outlined the areas of
knowledge that I don't have at this time and that was why I took it in the
first place. There are Amateurs who pass tests and then there are Amateurs
who learn. One final comment about upgrading. When was the last time you
upgraded your car license to the next level, say rally driver, or Formula-1
driver? When was the last time you got called out on not having upgraded
and admonished for being a lowly car driver? Onto Amateur stuff. First of
all, the wheel bearing has gone to a better place. It drove away on a big
blue truck on Wednesday morning and is no longer. So sad. In antenna news,
you may recall my experiences with the installation and tuning of an
antenna for a friend of mine. I made all manner of what some would call
outlandish statements, one Amateur all but called me a liar and accused me
of making it all up to promote my podcast. All this excitement because I
dared query the documentation of an Antenna. I've reached out to the
manufacturer, but I've not yet received a response. I'm told that my hunch
that this was a vertical dipole was correct. That in itself is curious
since I've been experimenting with a vertical dipole made from coax, not
enough to talk about success yet, but enough to be told that it will never
work. Gotta love the doubters. As I suspected, the cut-off piece of inner
coax, if you recall, the one that was a centimetre or so too long, is half
of a capacitor, the other half is in the base of the antenna. Note that
all this is based on what I've been told by a fellow amateur, and I'm
looking forward to hearing from the manufacturer what they have to say.
So, my vertical coax antenna idea started off with the idea that I wanted
to use a vertical dipole for working portable. I realised that some of the
designs I've seen knocking around the 'net are cutting off long chunks of
shield, or folding it...
This posting includes a media file:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/founda...teur-radio.mp3

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