[ADXA] 160 Pennant RX into Europe...and Jethrine recovering nicely after illness.

[rcurt at centurytel.net]

As I mentioned sometime back, Jethrine, the 160-6 homebrew amp had heart issues sometime back.
When preparing to do surgery I found the pair of mrf300's were very hard to get, and had jumped tremendously in price. I was finally able to get a pair out of Slovenia and got them installed and tested yesterday. Jethrine is doing well, but a second surgery will be done before putting her back in the line up. It seems the root cause of the "heart" failure was a "LOOSE NUT" on the front of the band switch, selecting the wrong band while in a sleep stupor. I will finally install the protection board I have had for months to prevent this from happening again. It is common knowledge to use protection or reap the consequences. 


I am happy to report that Jethrines sister, Karen (named for obvious resons) is doing well and at the moment is not causing trouble. She is the homebrew 2 meter amp using a pair of mrf300's, who was a royal pain when we first became "acquainted", but has since become more respectful. 


Chapter II...The Phased Pennants...


More fine tuning was done in the last few days. Measuring wtih the compass let me see that the northern most pennant was pointed about 43 degrees North east. The southern pennant was pointed about 70 degrees. I decided to re-aim the southern most pennant to the same heading as the north.  To do this I had to decrease the spacing between them from 210 feet to 180 feet. due to the tree supporting the tail of the pennant being in the wrong spot. I suppose I could have cut down the tree and planted another in the right spot, but I didn't feel I had that much time.  After this, there was not much to do other than wait for 160 to open in the correct direction, which happens to be 43 degrees.  This happened last night. 


According to last nights results, I feel the phased pennant project is finally coming together. Compared to other local stations, I saw very comparable results in the favored direction of my antenna, as well as a front to back ratio of about 12-15 db off the back and several db down off the sides. 


This is very much an improvement, making 160 usable again through the local noise issue. I hope to have a second reference antenna soon to help evaluate performance in the future. At the present, even with pskreporter data available, this is not 100% accurate. What I am confident in is the fact of usable band vs non-usable.


Attached is a photo of last night RX into Europe on 160, and the edited ADI file with W5ZJ and AA6KJ comparison for the period of time that the band was open into Europe. The adi file does not show the full picture of all receptions, but rather just a short peek during the apporximate times of the opening into Europe.  Of course, if intersted, just plug my call sign in pskreporter,  and the last 24 hours to see what the receiver is seeing here. 


Everyone have a great day!


Randy/W5ZJ
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