[Elecraft] may have it wrong

[W3FPR - Don Wilhelm]

Mike,

I would like to point out 2 things - first as others have indicated, a 33
ft. wire will be resonant somewhere near 20 meters - for 40 meters, it
should be about twice that long, and if you do not have a tuner, it should
be pruned to resonance because the KX1 will not perform well unless the
antenna jack has something close to a 50 ohm resistive antenna connected to
it.

I did get the impression that you connected one far end of your wire to a
grounding rod - that is not what you should do - if you are trying to use a
1/4 wavelength counterpoise wire, the far end should be open, not grounded,
and be aware that there will be a high RF voltage at the far end of this
wire.  Such a counterpoise wire becomes an integral part of the antenna
system.

If you feel you need anything grounded, ground the shell of the BNC
connector on the KX1 with a short large conductor so as to create a low
impedance ground path.

73,
Don W3FPR

> -----Original Message-----
>
> Please correct if this is wrong, I am trying to use my KX1 but
> after reading the group emails, I may be doing this all wrong.
>
> For frequency 7118,  I took a length of bare copper wire 33 feet
> long, divided (that is cut it ) it in half, took one half to the
> center of the BNC connector on the side of the radio and the
> other half directly to the grounding rod attached to the house.
> but from reading the emails on the group list it now appears I
> need to have a insulated coax and I should not be connected
> directly to the radio with the two bare copper wires.....
>
> Mike
>
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