[Lowfer] Big round coil hanging in the air

[Andy - KU4XR]

Hi All:

In a hasty rush to try to beat the rain, and darkness, I managed
to quickly wind a center loading coil for the " XR " antenna.
I had about 1 hour of daylight, but got it up there. One thing 
that I caught too late to change, ( dark, and now raining ), is
that I installed the coil Upside Down, meaning that the coil 
windings are going in the oposite direction of the Variometer
windings. Past experience has shown this to " Buck " against any
existing Inductance. I may or may not have helped my signal by
doing that, but when it isn't raining, and I have daylight; I 
will turn it over so all the windings are going in the same
direction.  ****  Some details  ****

The loading coil is about 4 feet above the roofline of my
mobile home. My hope is to pull some extra current up the 
vertical, and away from the side of the trailer. I hope it works.
I'm not sure how to take the meter readings I'm seeing now
on my TS450 meter, and my FS meter, as well as the RF current 
meter. When I did my antenna project in Nov. I added 5 feet in 
height, and extra top-hat wires. The RF current went up, but 
the FS, and radio meters both dropped in reading. I'm sure they
are reading " Near Field Voltages " ( The radio only has a 
4 foot coax jumper connected ), and as has been shown by captures
afterwards; the signal improved over the RF pathway. NOW; after
adding the coil, upside down though; The RF current has now
pegged the 200 mAmp meter scale, that's as high as she will read.
And same as before; the FS, and radio meters dropped even further.
I'm hopeing that's a good thing, and that more RF is actually
radiating from the top of the antenna.

My present measured readings are: 

PA Volts = 27 vdc ; PA Current = 37 mAmps ; Power is .999 Watts
and the RF Current meter as stated is 200 mAmps

Loading Coil details: 

Diameter = 6.5" ; Winding length = 4" ; Turns = 26 with #10 AWG
stranded insulated wire ; Coil Inductance = 88 uH ; 
Resistance = 1.1 Ohm ; unable to measure the distributed 
Capacitance on my LCR meter.
Coil form = A red plastic Folgers coffee can ( coffee enjoyed )

I'll see how it does for a few days with the Loading Coil as I
consider it , " Upside down " , then I'll turn it over and see
what happens then.  **  Lots of cut and try at LF  **

73 for noe all; and HNY to you also :::


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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