Norcal doublet antenna: Even the long version rocks

QRPxpedition station to test the 88-foot version of the Norcal doublet antenna. Gotta have that straight key for contacts with my SKCC cohorts!

Day is done. The QRPxpedition to my backyard deck to test an 88-foot version of the Norcal doublet is in the books. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the antenna is a keeper.

I started setting up around 1600 UTC, using my embarrassingly bright orange Jackite pole as a center support for the light-weight doublet. I hooked my FT-817ND up to my newly tricked-out battery, and with a ZM-2 antenna tuner to run  interference, I fed some RF into the antenna.

It tuned up nicely on 80-10. I may give 160 a try tomorrow. And the log is now filled with some additional DX contacts, as well as a handful domestic QSOs. Among the contacts:

RU3EG in Russia

OL100VP, a Czech special-event station celebrating 100 years of a local soccer club

IR5ONU, a UNICEF special-event station in Italy

9A04JB in Croatia

F6HKA, a Straight Key Century Club buddy in France

EI0CZ in Ireland (one of two Irish stations)

EA6UN, in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean

ZB2FK on Gibralter

Several of these involved elbowing my way through pile-ups. Wait, I’m a QRPer. So I must have merely been tugging on pants legs! Hey, mister, woodja talk to me, too?

Closer to home, I had nice semi rag chew with WU0L in South Dakota, another QRPer also running 5 watts. Semi because the needs of my canine companion, Luke, became too urgent for him to endure a full-scale rag chew.

But ya gotta love the Irish. Heck, I live near Boston, where Celtic (if not the woebegone Celtics) is cool.  I’m convinced that EI5DR, Ed, in county Mayo, and EI0CZ, Brendan, in county Clare, gave me the only honest signal reports among my day’s DX contacts. Both gave me 589s. Everyone else overseas gave me either the perfunctory 599, or if I was really weak in their ears, the perfunctory 559.

So here’s to you, Ed and Brendan. You and Mark, WU0L, gave me the best fix on how my new antenna was doing!

Hams, doublets, and we’re not talking Shakespeare

The basic ingredients for a Norcal doublet antenna -- ribbon wire, some fishing swivels, and a few narrow cable ties. Come to think of it, we've got the ingredients for three doublets, since the ribbon wire is 12 conductors across!

It’s Friday. I’m on vacation. A sunny mild day is in the forecast. Just right for a QRPxpedition to the back deck to try out an 88-foot doublet antenna I assembled last night.

But with a house lot shaped like a wedge of pie, I wont’ be setting this up as a garden variety, fully-extended wire antenna. The lot doesn’t have the space. So I’m going to try it out as a horizontal vee, or what I think of as an archer’s antenna. But more on that later.

The doublet is the Norcal doublet, a light-weight variation on an antenna that amateur-radio operators have used for decades.

It’s easy to pull together, it’s cheap (something we hams really love), and it’s effective. You can find the original instructions for pulling the antenna together here. But to save you an extra mouse click, I’ll step through the, well, steps I took to assemble an 88-foot-long version of the 44-foot original, which I made last year. I’ve added a very small modification that to my mind makes it a tad easier to use repeatedly.

One antenna idea that’s all wet, but it works!

Hams are nothing if not resourceful in crafting antennas.

They use simple wires, various configurations of aluminum tubing. Heck, folks even load up their down spouts. But hooking your rig up to a fountain?

This came into my inbox today. And while I’ve never heard of it before, the notion of an “ionic liquid antenna” has been around for some time, it seems. Just ask Doctor Google.

You gotta think the applications would be fairly specialized. But hey, if you live in a hosing, er, housing development that doesn’t allow outside antennas but does allow fountains, this may be just what you’re looking for!

More QRP fun: Another afternoon, another antenna, and some overseas contacts to show for it!

It was a dark and stormy Saturday afternoon…

Well, no it wasn’t; just a bit of overcast. It kept the deck cool for another round of antenna testing for those times when I want to hit the road/trail/whatever and travel light while still putting a station on the air.

This time I used a 31-foot Jackite collapsible pole as a “tree” to support a random-wire antenna for my KX-1.

The wire length is closer to 40 feet to accommodate a reasonable run from the base of the pole to the radio. In essence, it’s a vertical I augmented with a pair of 16-foot radials.

It worked beautifully with my EMTECH ZM-2 tuner as well as the KX-1′s ATU. I got a better match on 40 with the ZM-2 than with the ATU, but either way, I got a signal out.

I started on 20 meters at about 21:30 UTC and worked EA2LU/QRP in Spain, KP4GL in Puerto Rico, F5UOW in France, and PA7DW in the Netherlands.

VA-1 antenna analyzer for those who travel light

Autek Research's VA-1 atenna analyzer

I’ve been looking for an antenna analyzer that packs smaller than the MFJ unit I’ve had for about a year. And I found it.

It’s the Autek Research VA1.

Yes, I’ve read the eHam reviews, pro and con, so I’m going in eyes wide open. I popped the case, inspected the solder joints, and pronounced them healthy.

But in reading through the manual, I found some basic information lacking: How many bands? And what frequency range does each have? When you turn the unit on, a frequency pops up on the screen. But you have no idea where you are in the unit’s RF universe.

So as a tiny public service to hamdom, here is the information that should be included in the manual. The band numbers, by the way, are just for reference.

Band 1: 0.444-0.914 Mhz

Band 2: 0.748-1.515 Mhz

Band 3: 1.325-2.781 Mhz

Band 4: 4.115-9.555 Mhz

Band 5: 7.834-19.560 Mhz

Band 6: 13.840-35.880 Mhz

There you have it. Your mileage may vary a bit. As for me, the band info is going onto a little white card taped to the back of my analyzer for future reference!

QRPxpedition adventure — to the backyard and beyond

Working my KX-1 through a Norcal doublet for 40-10 meters



It was July 17, a hot, sultry day. Humid, but no rain in the forecast. What better weather than this for trying out my KX-1 with a new antenna — a Norcal Doublet made from computer ribbon cable?

I was jazzed.

I’d assembled the wire portion of the antenna a couple of weeks earlier. Then, a 20-foot collapsible crappie pole (that’s a fish, not an editorial comment on the quality of the pole) arrived a couple of days before the big test. It’s the center support for the antenna. And what the heck, if the bands go dead, go fishing!

The real motive, aside from enjoying ham radio in the fresh air, was to become reasonably competent at setting up and striking the antenna before I made a complete fool of myself during some communal ham field activity.