80m dipole


It's been a while since I posted which has been mainly because of the poor propagation on the HF bands. I have made a few decent DX contacts on 15m and 17m which have been good on occasion. Otherwise nothing to spectacular has been happening here at the home of M0YKS.


As usual during the winter months I enjoy listening lower down the HF bands especially on 80m and 40m. To do this I use a HUSTLER 6BTV vertical and also CAROLINA WINDOM antennas. I have had both in use for 8 years and the outcome is that the vertical is excellent and the WINDOM is good on transmit but far too noisy on receive to continue using it. With this in mind I altered the off centre antenna of 131 feet to a balanced equal legged 80m dipole by shortening one leg to 65 feet and adding 15 feet to the other leg to make a doublet of 130 feet which I soldered and clamped together. I didn't require another Multi banded wire as I have my Cushcraft MA5B, HUSTLER 6BTV and 20m Delta LOOP, I had decided to try a more resonant mono band 80m dipole in the hope that I might pick out the DX on 80m a bit better. I will let you know my findings over the next few weeks. So far the dipole is showing 2.5 swr and seems to receive less noise and has cleaner sounding signals. Catch you in my next post or on the bands soon. Best 73 de M0YKS Simon



Update first couple of hours
After a couple of adjustments I managed to get the swr down to 1:2 - 1:3 across the 80m band. The reception is very nice with a significantly reduced noise level on the new dipole compared to the WINDOM. I am very optimistic about the dipole so far. Best 73

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