I'm giving some thought to buying a "sparkplug" antenna.  Well its just the matching unit but the size, performance and even the price seem decent based on reviews.

Anyone here have/tried one?

73
vy2js

Watching this, thought immediately of Gil.

https://youtu.be/qG-xhatHUuQ

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Vy2js

Radio related in that is how cell phone work...  ;)

I got a raspberry pi for xmas and promptly set up pi-hole on it which acts as a DNS request sink-hole.  all dns requests go to the pi-hole: if blacklisted (like facebook for me!) the pi-hole reaponds with nothing, but if it us whitelisted (or just not blacklisted) then the dns request gets passed along.  It deals only with the dns request not the data so thingsvare actually faster.

And no more ads.

And no more trackers!

On average, roughly ONE HALF of all dns requests from my phones & laptops are blocked 🚫.   Woo hoo

Also set up pivpv which qas super simple to do, just answering the installer prompts.

This means i have my pi set up not only as a dns sink-hole but mybown vpn!

So no when I'm out of the house i connect to my vpn and no matter where i am, I'm connected to home and significantly reduce the risk of being hacked.  I can now use public wifi without being exposed.

The real bonus is that when out of the house and connected to my vpn, my pi-hole is also in effect so NO ADS or TRACKERS.

Ad'free games.  Anywhere.

And facebook has lost track of me.

73
vy2js

I think I have settled on the Xiegu G90 as the radio i will start with.  I haven't seen any serious negatives brought up in any reviews.

Power consumption seems pretty good for what it is (i know there is no pleasing Gil on that front haha ) and it puts out full 20W power down to 9v input in videos I've seen.

Very wide ATU that works fast.  SWR spectrum scope, waterfall, SDR... not sure what else i could ask for.

Anyone here use one?  I searched and found no mention of it.

It should be simple enough to use as my home station,  portable rig and even a mobile in my Jeep...

73
Jamie

Would there be any advantage to be had by making an EFHW sloper array?

If the elevated supports are the same height and the correct distance apart, and the feedline to the 2nd sloper adjusted in length for the correct phasing, wouldn't the slopers then act like a beam of sorts?

This also presumes both "random" wires are the same length...

Maybe it could be a "bug out beam?"

Something to play with once the snow goes away I suppose.

Anyone ever try this?

Regarding the info at http://www.hflink.com/antenna/#BBTD, specifically the house roof or attic version...

I'm thinking this will be my 1st homebrew HF antenna.

It looks like it should be a good option for a qrp rig.

Now to order the stuff i need to make a 16:1 balun...


Any thoughts appreciated


73

Using a great phone app called Morse Mania,  i learned the alphabet and numbers.  20 wpm character speed,  but really slow copy.

Tomorrow i will do punctuation.

One day!

I budgeted a month.

Now to get faster...