Tuesday, May 29, 2012

You Know How To Make It Rain?

I know how to make it rain: put up a new ham radio antenna with a home-made matching transformer, one you really plan to weatherproof after you've seen if the antenna is going to work.

I checked it out last night about 10, after dinner ("Steak a la Roseholme," slow-grilled over hardwood charcoal, with baked taters and green beans, ahhh!). It worked pretty well. This morning, it's getting rained on.

Guess I'll be taking it down and applying a hair dryer to it this evening.

7 comments:

  1. Your timing is a little off. Everybody knows antennas put up in the winter work better.

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  2. And if you HAD sealed it up, VSWR would have been epic.

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  3. Well, the upshot of rain is it makes a fantastic groundplane. On more than one occasion I have soaked the ground trying to improve performance, and yes it works.

    I have a couple J-poles I need to finish tuning for some friends and I'm going to cut up one and turn it into a Super-J. So many projects.

    *One of the local ham clubs did the J's as a project and during assembly they soldiered before tuning. Darn college kids!

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  4. Now, hang a new HAM antenna _AND_ wash the car.

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  5. Dave: The rule is, antennas put up in miserable weather work better; antennas put up in blizzards work best of all. And it was miserably hot the day I strung it.

    I wrapped the balun with self-amalgamating tape this evening, then went and had a QSO. Tuned up just fine. Worked a fellow in Virgina. 599 and plenty over S9.

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  6. And here I am with my home made CB dipole, standing out in the rain, next to a relatively new mattress I needed to move inside!

    I think I need to get an orange T-shirt with a black zig-zag line just above the hem.

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