Can’t get enough antenna. One end of my lot to the other is 133ft, which is just about enough for an 80m off center fed dipole. This antenna requires a 4:1 balun. I went with an MFJ again because of price and because it had next day Amazon Prime. At some point I will upgrade to a Balun Designs I think, because they make one with a built in choke for antennas installed above buildings. 80m OCF dipoles are pretty cool because they are resonant on 80m, 40m, 20m, 17m, 12m and 10m. With the tuner I was able to make FT8 contacts on 160m, 60m, 30m and 6m also,…
Grounding and Bonding
Being in Florida I’m concerned about lightning. Someone at the club recommended the ARRL Grounding and Bonding book which I purchased and read. I followed the information in the book to create a single point ground panel outside the house using a DX Engineering utility box . Coax from the antenna comes into this box and into a lightning arrestor, then into the house where I have Delta switch which has another arrestor in it, then to the radio. I screwed an aluminum sheet to my shack table and then a copper pipe onto the back of the table with screws to attach equipment grounding terminals. The radio sits on the aluminum and is…
Second Antenna
It didn’t take long for the “more!” feeling and I quickly added 40m speaker wire to the balun and put it on a roof tripod. I did a fan dipole in an X pattern on the roof. This got me on 40m and 20m. I used the 468/f formula to measure out the speaker wire. By this point I also joined the local amateur radio club and one of the guys came over with an analyzer and I was pretty close to resonant right in the middle of the bands.