I enjoy Rapid Deployment Amateur Radio, Field Days, QRP, satellites, and CW. I have many friends in the hobby that make it fun. I will keep you posted on what I learn about amateur radio on this blog.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
N4KGL Beacon Rocket Antenna Coupler
I wound the FT-114-43 toroid with 4 turns on transmitter side and 32 on the antenna side. I setup a sloping half wave with the high end 24 feet high. I could not get the SWR down and the noise bridge had the R near zero. So I started taking off turns on the antenna coil and the SWR got better and better until 19 turns it was about 1.5 to 1 then I shortened the antenna a bit and it went to 1 to 1. This might be a mirage but I'll take it. So I might try to make some contacts with this wire and see if it is an antenna or a dummy load. With the 4.75 ratio I ended up with that would say the antenna has an impedance around 1200 ohms. I did all this testing in the driveway and I may have gotten a couple of passer-bys interested in ham radio.
