A drizzly Sunday resulted in a bit of inside activity. Dave Zl1DL produced a 3m extendable pole (intended for for a window wash brush) that he picked up from “David’s Emporium”. Dave assures us there is no connection here; supposedly only a commonality of name. The intention was to use it to extend the club portable antenna pole to 7m, but of course, the two poles weren’t designed to connect. After contemplating 3D printing some spacers, we went with a far more complex solution; a sleeve made from conduit with heatshrink to take up the differences in diameters. The timely modification worked in well for the trial of Luke’s first antenna construction.
With the pole modification out of the way, we got down to the real business of having a coffee and making intelligent sounding conversation (as always: the accuracy of any claims made could not be independently verified).
After the rain abated, it was time to brave the outdoors for the antenna test. As the grass was wet we erected the pole on the hard stand in front of the building. A number of cars provided anchor points for the guy ropes. After measuring out the wire lengths for the dipole, up went the antenna and…
Initial measurements indicated something was not quite right. Down came the antenna and a couple of unterminated connections inside the balun box were quickly fixed. Up went the antenna again and success! A couple of iterations of wire length adjustment saw a very nice match on 40m. Well done Luke – never stop building things!
