[OKDXA] Good Stuff

Wed, 5 Feb 2003 09:47:13 -0600

Kim:

The Force 12 sounds good!  I have a Force 12 XR-5 ten element beam and am
extremely pleased.  I am using dipoles on 40 and 80 and I am putting up a
Double-L on 160.  I am interested in the 80 meter vertical and extremely
interested in the new 160 meter vertical.  I have the room to put one up and
have been considering the Titanex, but I am not really wanting to run all of
those radials.  With the solar cycle dwindling down, 160 through 40 are
going to be the bands to operate on.  I did work F5IN on 80, ZS6QU on 80,
J3/DJ7RJ on 40, 5N0EVR on 75, and 5T on 40.  The last two nights have been
pretty productive on the low bands.  I have thought about putting up a
four-square, but that is a lot of headache.  Sounds like the Force 12 is
doing a great job.

73's
Alan, N5PA

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]On
Behalf Of Kim Elmore
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 9:28 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [OKDXA] Good Stuff

Hi Dave and the Gang,

The whole thing sticks up 36 feet, from base to top.  It has two sets of
guys -- I used 1/8" black dacron from Davis RF -- and *sits* on the
ground.  Yes, that's right: there is no poured base and no hole.  A 16"
piece of steel rebar is used as a central stake,, driven in about 12", and
the base tube is simply set over it.  My location has very sandy soil, so I
drilled a hole in a cinder block patio stone.  The rebar extends through
that and the antenna sits on the patio stone.  This way, the antenna won't
slowly auger itself into the ground and loosen the guys.  The antenna has
"T" bars at the top and bottom for end loading.  These are between 20 and
25 ft long, so they stick out a fair distance to either side.  The antenna
is omnidirectional, so the orientation of the T bars is
inconsequential.  Yes, it twists around in the wind a bit, but not as much
as you might think. Force 12 is working on a 160 m version that will be 46
ft tall but cost about $1k.

I heard F5IN Monday night, but the pileup was instantaneously huge (danged
internet clusters!) and his signal was pretty poor here.  I couldn't
compete with the East Coast or Upper Midwest stations.  What's worse, he
was not working split, so things got ugly very fast and I gave up.

Like 160, I'll bet that EU is not as common on 80 as on the higher bands,
and that E-W paths are much easier.

73,

Kim

                           Kim Elmore, Ph.D.
                        University of Oklahoma
         Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies
"All of weather is divided into three parts: Yes, No, and Maybe. The
greatest of these is Maybe" The original Latin appears to be garbled.

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