[Elecraft] AX-1 -- with and without counterpoise

[Wayne Burdick]

Every conductor attached to the radio’s case (ground) will become part of the counterpoise. Including your body, and any other objects that are conductive that capacitively or resistively couple to the ground.

This is one of the many reasons why an ATU is needed to compensate for electrically short antennas.

Wayne


----
elecraft.com

> On Sep 25, 2022, at 7:49 AM, Julia Tuttle <julia at juliatuttle.net> wrote:
> 
> How long is the power cable? Is it possible it's using that as a
> counterpoise?
> 
>> On Sun, Sep 25, 2022, 10:07 Ron Gruner <ron at gruner.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I've just run two tests of my WSPR/AX-1 set-up with and without a
>> counterpoise. Each test ran 24 hours over the last couple of days. Here are
>> the results:
>> 
>>                                                    COUNTERPOISE?
>>                              YES       NO
>>                          -------  -------
>> Total Contacts                152      129
>> Maximum Distance (km)      15,720   17,276
>> Median Distance             2,137    1,823
>> Median SpotQ                  446      398
>> 
>> Where SpotQ = Kilometers / [(2 Watts x (SNR in DB + 36))/36) ]
>> 
>> The WSPR circuit's ground and SMA connectors are apparently providing
>> enough of a counterpoise to propagate a respectable signal.
>> 
>> Here's a close-up of the rig with no counterpoise:
>> https://gruner.com/k4rhg/wspr_ax-1_nocounterpoise.png
>> 
>> 73,
>> Ron Gruner
>> K4RHG
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