Tag: wire antenna

  • Making a common-mode choke

    Over the winter I bought a couple of different EFHW antenna kits, not all of which are assembled yet. (More about these in the weeks & months to come!) I have been wishing for a common-mode choke to work with them because of all the stories that one reads about RF-on-the-coax-shield interfering with the operation…

  • Coulee Experimental State Forest, K-5578

    Woke up this morning thinking “activate a new park today”, but which one? In the end I decided to try Coulee Experimental State Forest, K-5578 again. (for my previous attempt, click here). It was an ideal day for a wire antenna and I quickly hung my 20 meter dipole from some sapling trees and turned…

  • Slingshots

    I have always liked a slingshot of one kind or another as an aid to getting a wire up in a tree. I still have the Wrist-Rocket that I bought from L. L. Bean back when they were an obscure sporting-goods store in Maine, and it has served me well all of those years, (allowing…

  • QRPguys Multi-Z Tuner kit arrived last week

    I have been wanting a really small tuner to use with the Penntek TR-35, and I have had my eye on the QRPguys Multi-Z tuner for some time. It was kind of a toss-up between this and the Emtech ZM-2; they both have good word-of-mouth. Haven’t even opened the bag yet. More to come, soon!…

  • The trees know that spring is coming …

    Yesterday I was in the neighborhood of Mill Bluff S. P. (K-1463) and the weather was unusually mild for this time of year, so it seemed like it might just be time for a quick hike through the woods! The Camel Bluff trail was slippery with half-melted snow and irregular semi-ice and I was glad…

  • No more antenna in the tree

    Back in June when I had just received the X6100, as soon as I had charged the internal battery I improvised a quick random wire antenna off the deck: a small round rock carried some mason’s line over a convenient limb of the northernmost pine tree, which served to hoist up a lightweight insulator and…