The Unofficial iPad Amateur Radio Club

[twerppoet]

Thanks. If the code was still a requirment I'd have probably been a Tech forever.

 

[twerppoet]

I've discovered the matrix.

 

[RudyN]

I got my Novice license in 1989. Then I got on the air and studied some more and had my Extra by 1991. It was fun copying code at 20wpm! I have dropped down to about 15wpm now, but it is still fun.

 

[twerppoet]

I've been playing with a SDR (Software Defined Radio) for a couple weeks now. I bought an SDRPlay RSP Pro, a Wonder-Wand HF tuner/antenna, an MFJ-9232 loop antenna tunner, and lots of other odds and ends.

Turns out that like most other radios, the antenna is the most imporant part, epspecially on HF. I've experimented with a couple, and so far a loop conected to either the Wonder-Wand or MFJ-9232 has worked best. So, I decided I wanted something portable, easy to take on the road and set up anywhere.

I built this. It kind of portable, in that it only takes me about 15 minutes to tear it down or set it up, and I it will find in the back seat of hte car when in pieces.

 

[Wing rider]

You built a single element quad!

 

[twerppoet]

You built a single element quad!

It looks similar because of the way I constructed it, but it's a loop. Ideally the loop would be a circle. I'm loosing a lot of it's performance with the top part being angular, but getting a perfect circle (or even close) is more than I've got the time or supplies for right now.

Loops are substantially smaller than quads. About ⅓ of a wavelength in circumference.

The theory behilnd loops, well, I haven't read up about that yet. I tried one because I've read that they get low noise recpetion at near dipole sensitivity wihout the need for a ground. What you give up is bandwidth. A loop pertty much has to have a tuner attached, or you'd be stuck with a very narrow operating range.