[Lowfer] Evidently coil L/D does matter

[Andy - KU4XR]

Hi everyone:

After redoing my antenna in Nov. and adding more tophat, the 
Inductance needed went down. I had planned to unwind some of
the fixed coil to bring the tuning back to the MAX Inductance
position on the Variometer. I kept putting it off, and since 
I've started reading about coil L/D ratios, I saw that mine
was way out of proportion. I also read that the Variable coil
should add only a small amount of Inductance for peak 
performance of the variometer. I had almost 1 Milli-Henry on
the vari-coil, and about 1.30 mH on the fixed coil ( bucket ).
I unwound the vari-coil to a value of 370 uH, and added the
windings to the paint bucket to a value of 2.14 mH.
The bucket / fixed winding is 10" diameter, and the Length of
the fixed coil is 2". If I uderstand the calculation right,
2/10 = .2  :: I think that is in the good range. Anyway, I
turned the beacon back on and re-tuned, and the changes 
resulted in a 10 mAmp increase in RF current at 1 Watt.
I am now at 195 mAmps on a 200 mAmp meter. It has never been
this high before. I am definitely happy with the results
of todays work.
I am still trying to decide if putting a fixed coil in the 
vertical radiator about 4' above the roof level of the trailer
might help to further reduce capacitive losses from the
verticals proximity to the aluminum siding of the trailer home.
It may be one of those; I'll just have to try it and see if it
helps or not.

Well 73 to everyone for now :::


Andy - KU4XR - EM75xr - Friendsville, TN.
LOWfer Beacon " XR " @ 185.29866 KHz ( QRSS-60 )
Coordinates:  N:  35* 43' 54" - W:  84* 3' 16"
http://www.myspace.com/beaconxr
http://webpages.charter.net/ku4xr/
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