[ADXA] directionally challenged

[Dennis Schaefer]

Randy,

That is a very interesting project!  I have some little 12V open frame
relays, so I could experiment with stuff I have on hand.  If you could
reverse a single Pennant, then you could cover all points with a pair of
them.  I’ll be looking forward to the results.

I’ve been stymied so far by the fact that I get lazy when it’s cold
outside.  I’ve also wasted time worrying about where to put the antenna,
but I’m planning to make it steerable to some degree with a rope and
stake.  I’ve got lots of projects working in my mind, just need to convert
them to action.   And - yikes! - it’s just a couple of weeks to Christmas
and we have done absolutely no shopping :)

Keep letting us in on your projects - it’s good to know some people are
actually building things!

73,
Dennis
On Thu, Dec 4, 2025 at 6:12 PM <rcurt at centurytel.net> wrote:

> Good to see you back! I'm thinking that direction is way overrated anyway.
> I have been working on a "secret" pennant project. I think you may have
> slipped into my "lab" and took a peek at my "engineering" documents. I
> would send a picture, but I'm on my PC and the pictures are on my phone,
> and never the twain have met. The short story of this project is I am
> attempting to design a circuit  that will allow a person to reverse
> directions of the pennant without actually moving the pennant. I haven't a
> clue if it will work, but I should know in the next week or 2.
>
>
> I'm all for banning ragweed and noise. Let's start a petition!
>
>
> Randy/W5ZJ....pics will follow from my phone.
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Dec, 2025 at 4:26 PM, Dennis Schaefer <dennisw5rz at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> To: adxa
> Which way is up?
>
> During the DX contest, I turned the beam SE and worked ZF5T quickly on
> several bands.  They were booming in, with a big signal.  Saturday morning,
> I noticed  EU was weaker than I expected and ZF was coming in better from
> about 60 degrees.  Sticking with BIC guidelines, I couldn’t be bothered to
> go outside and actually look at the antenna.
>
> I tried unsuccessfully to work 4U1UN, a band counter on 10M.  The signal
> was best around 300 degrees.  I finally went out and looked,  and
> discovered the antenna was off course.  EU was much stronger when the
> indicator showed NW.  This was more than calibration could fix, so I
> corrected the rotator scale with a dry erase pen and will deal with it
> soon.  (I did bag 4U1UN once I got this figured out).
>
> Since my dead trees have been removed, I can put the Pennant receive
> antenna back up.  Last year, my main noise source was to the South so I put
> the null toward that direction.  The South noise source has disappeared.  I
> never did figure out where it was coming from.  Now the noise is from the
> power pole that is to the North.  Putting the null to the North is not
> ideal for DX but I think I would get the best S/N by doing that.   I need
> to figure out a new ideal location for the pennant and how to steer the
> null.  The weather is not cooperating with this.
>
> Maybe I should give the pole a few whacks with the BFH.  Although I have
> never done that, nope, never, I have heard of it being done.  But again,
> I’ve never done anything like that, no sir!  Did I mention that I would
> never do anything like that, and if I did, I would be sure nobody saw me :)
>
> 73,
> Dennis/RZ
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/adxa/attachments/20251208/8000d4f6/attachment.html>