66' Dipole ready for the attic! |
The ladder line drops down into my garage and then down to the basement where my shack is located.
Last night I built the BL2 1:1 or 4:1 balun from Elecraft. The ladder line terminates at the balun and a 3' piece of coax goes from the balun to my KX3.
Wrapped this all up last night about midnight - and then started doing some testing. The internal tuner on the KX3 tunes ALL bands 40-10 meters almost down to 1:1 SWR. Very nice.
I tuned around 40 meters and only heard a couple stations that time of night. The noise level last night was between S4 and S5 - not sure if this is the normal noise level or not, but I suspect it is.
I did a bit of testing using the RBN - I called CQ on 40 meters for a few minutes and ended up with spots North, South and East of Kansas - good sign. Then I switched antennas back to my 9:1 UNUN 30' wire in the attic and did the same thing - so reports. So good news is that my performance on 40 meters is GREATLY improved. The reports on my 66' Dipole were from 10-18 DB SNR on the RBN - all with 5 watts out of the KX3.
At 1:00 am local time I heard K0GPA calling CQ - he was 559 here. So I threw out my call and he came back to me with a 559 as well. Turns out he was running a KX3 also - he was at 10 watts, and I was at 5 watts. The QSB got him a bit, but I think he was using some type of loop - just missed what type. It was a nice QSO with Bob - and it proved I was getting out!
So now I am looking forward to putting it through the paces a bit more and see just how much my reception will improve with more wire in the air! I hope to at least have time to look at the waterfall tonight on 20 meters PSK31 to see what it looks like compared to my old antenna.
I will keep you posted!
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