[HCARC] 10 meter Loop

[Gary and Arlene Johnson]

I am not worrying about it being an NVIS antenna. and yes, I am happy with 
the short answer.  Trust me, when I want the theorey behind how something 
works I will ask for HOW DOES THIS WORK.  Then, I will want the BIG ANSWER. 
I am not putting the theory down - it's just that I am not at the point in 
Radio where the big answer does any more than confuse me - and I suspect 
quite a few others.  We are blessed (I think) with club members who have 
vast knowledge of the inner workings of radio.  However, the chances of me 
ever getting to the range of being able to design and build any other than 
the simplest of systems are not great.  To know enough not to fry a 
transmitter is about the level of theory I can handle currently.  If your 
answer is much harder than what you find in the General Class or maybe the 
Extra Class License manual then you are getting beyond my knowledge base at 
present.  I suspect this is true of many, if not most Hams.  I am at the 
level of build it from some plans, put it up and test it with an antenna 
analyzer.  If it is within specs, connect it to an antenna tuner and the 
radio and see if it allows me to talk to someone.  If yes - great!!  If no, 
try to figure out why and change it or start over.  Since I am probablay 
using inexpensive things like wire and the pieces parts such as insulators 
are reuseable, little is lost.  And who knows - some antenna that I try 
combined with the location I am in, with the soil that I have just might be 
a magical combination and I will be able to successfully communicate, which 
after all is the point of the whole thing anyway.

I am not going to go back to college and get an advanced degree in 
Electrical Engineering.  I am probably the worst kind of Ham, that the old 
guys seem to fear the most - one who just wants to communicate and isn't 
interested in designing, building or tweaking or repairing electronic 
systems.  It's why I majored in an aplied science (microbiology) vs Physics 
or Engineering.  There should be no fear that Gary is going to open up his 
transceiver and make some modifications other than a plug and play filter or 
the like.  And yes - my VCR still blinks 12.   I probably should be daring 
and change that.

Email trimmed per request.  I am sorry, we should really be doing that, 
however too often I am trying to figure out what someone is answering and 
the untrimmed helps.  Sometimes there are multiple emails on related 
subjects going on at the same time.

Gary J
N5"BAA"