[Lowfer] Must have done something right

[Andy - KU4XR]

Hello All:

I am happy to post that I did some work on the " XR " ant.
and this time it paid off. I undid some goof ups, and redid
some needed too's, and the results weren't " WOW ! it went 
up a needle width " When I retuned after unwinding some
turns from the variometer; it pegged the FS meter. I had to 
put a pot. in the driver line to decrease the PA drive, and
bring it down to 1 watt. It shot up to 1.8 watts input after
the ant. work. So now I'm running about 10 mA less PA current
and have a higher FS reading than before. I was pleasantly 
surprised with the results. I won't say that there are no 
more improvements that could be made to the ant, but with the
way it's radiating right now; I'm going to leave well enough
alone for the time.
At the moment; I think worthwhile improvements will come from
concentrating on improving my variometer setup in hopes of
reducing losses there. I'm using an orange paint bucket, and
a red plastic folgers coffee can. I have had some comments
that the pigments in the colors in the plastic could cause
losses, plus I used a mixture of solid and stranded wire on
the vari-coil which I need to redo.

I have read about others drilling holes in their paint bucket
where the coil was to be wound to make it more like an open
air coil, which supposedly will help reduce dielectric losses.
Has anyone here tried that and actually saw an improvement ??

Well that's it for this post; I hope everyone is well.
73 for now :::


Andy - KU4XR - EM75xr - Friendsville, TN.
LOWfer Beacon " XR " @ 184.322 KHz ( QRSS-60 )
Coordinates:  N:  35* 43' 54" - W:  84* 3' 16"
http://www.myspace.com/beaconxr