[SMCARA] 20m Beam Project

[Daniel Metcalf]

Good Morning All,

I just finished building a two element beam antenna
(http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~hansongr/Miniyagi.htm but all PVC) last
night and so far the results are looking good. Using my FT-897's SWR
meter and being without a tuner I am showing an SWR of 1.3:1 down at
14.175, SWR of 1.1:1 at 14.250 and SWR of 1.2:1 up at 14.325. Without
having to trim anything once it was up it was up (I am either really
good at this or extremely lucky Hi Hi).

Using only 75 watts I made 2 contacts with it last night W4PSC in
florida but being he was off to the side of the beam (which is
pointing West to North West and pointing it via arm strong method) I
lost him after exchanging call signs. Then came WA0UAY Rick from Iowa
who monitored the signal throughout the conversation about the antenna
periodically reported 58 to 59. I think he is going to build one now.

If I had the patience to wait I would have liked to of answered to the
two gentlemen from Los Angeles on 14.240 and 14.245 last night as I
had them 59++ on the meter but they were busy dealing with their pile
ups. Hope to get more data tonight.

One thing Rick WA0UAY was interested in was the front to back ratio.
How does one go about figuring that out?


73's
Dan -- KB3UUN