[Lowfer] Thunderstorms!

[Ralph Hartwell]

> I've been following your bucket building and viewed the nice pictures
> you've placed on the Web. Good detail for others wishing to do a
> bucket.
>
> So now you have had to separate that long coil? and reduce the vari
> coil too? Was that vari too large for fine tuning?

Yes, I separated them just because it was too big to fit in the cabinet.
Hopefully, when I get the bigger and longer antenna up, I will be able
to resonate it with just one bucket and the variometer.  When I split
the unit, I left the variometer just as it was, but I added another 15
or so turns on the bucket near the open end of the bucket.  That gave me
as much inductance as possible without bank winding the bucket.  The
variometer still works fine, and still tunes nicely between tap changes
on the bucket coil.

> Also, if the other half of the coil is outside the box, do you plan on
> covering it for moisture protection?

I may fabricate another cabinet for it, or enclose it in a plastic
barrel of some sort, or just ignore the weather.  I was planning to set
things up to test the coil and then douse it with the garden hose to see
what the effect will be.

I figure that if I mount it with the axis of the coil horizontal,
rainwater will drain around the circumference of the windings and drip
off the bottom.  How much the tuning and loss will change is unknown.
Ice on coils and antennas causes more loss and detuning than does
rainwater, but iceing is not one of the problems we have to worry about
down here!

73,

Ralph   W5JGV / WC2XSR / 13

http://home.att.net/~shmrg

http://home.att.net/~ralph.hartwell