[Lowfer] Makeshift lowFER receiving antenna

[LEE BAHR]

I read over the articles sent to me by Steve Ratzlaff  on the Mini Whip.  It 
sure looks inexpensive enough and looks like a fast build.

I have a couple questions you gentlemen could answer:

1.  Are you using the short PC board antenna, the longer 100 mm PC antenna, 
or a longer real whip antenna with them?

2.  I know PVC pipe picks up moisture over time and UV light makes PVC 
brittle over time.  Do you spray paint the assembly to get rid of these 
problems?  Seems to me it would be a good idea unless you like looking at 
the guts through a baby bottle.  Maybe you just don't worry about it and 
stuff it in another bottle when the old one goes bad.

3.  Looking at the simple PC board I suspect you use "Manhattan ugly 
construction" for lands other then  +, ground, antenna, and output.

4.  I would think a cheap way to run coax between the two boxes would be to 
use TV type RG-11U 75 ohm coax and make use of F connectors.  Have any of 
you made use of done this?  Would seem to me you could then use BNC or UHF 
connectors to your radio.

Also, I just got a message back from Crystalonics regarding the CP-666 FET 
transistors.  They will sell them individually and told me I can call them 
and order such tomorrow.  They are $17.50 each plus $5.00 shipping.

I'll try my new FT-950 today and test for internal birdies.  The FT-890 has 
a lot of them.  Maybe I need to start thinking of a long wave converter to 
around 4 Mhz.  As I recall, I saw a construction article in QST magazine a 
few months ago on how to build one.

Lee, w0vt

PS:  My MEDFER station is going nowhere now thinking about LOWFER






> A J310 FET can be substituted for the CP666 with good results. Here's some 
> measurements from a few
> years back. In all, I've probably built a dozen of the Amrad E 
> probes...three with the CP666 and the
> rest using J310
>
>                      Amrad article         W1VD built           J310 
> 12volt        J310 24 volt
>
>
> 1 dB comp.    +25 dBm                +25 dBm            +17 dBm 
> +18 dBm
>
> IP2                +53 dBm*              +60 dBm                +50 dBm 
> +60 dBm
>
> IP3                +37 dBm                +36 dBm               +32 dBm 
> +32 dBm
>
>
> * possible measurement error
>
> Jay W1VD  WD2XNS  WE2XGR/2
>