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160 Meter fun
24 January 2013 | by Instead of chasing 80 Meter Foxes, I decided to make an effort in the NAQCC 160 Meter Sprint that was held tonight. Boy, am I glad I did!
Up until now, I really haven’t had anything that loaded up well on 160 Meters. When I had my G5RV, it would load on 160 Meters; but barely and you could sure tell the radio wasn’t happy about it.
The 88′ EDZ is about the same. It will load up on 160 Meters; but the autotuner in the K3 takes a painfully long time to achieve a match. And then, if you decide to change frequency – even just a hair, the autotuner begs to be re-tuned.
The W3EDP, however? I hit the autotune button and within what seems to be about a second and a half, I get a tiny little “BRRRRP” and a 1.1:1 match. And I can tune around quite a bit without the radio complaining. I know it’s not the ideal solution for 160 Meters; but it has allowed me to make more 160 Meter contacts in one night than I have in all my 34 years of operating combined. Seriously, before tonight, I think my total QSO count on 160 Meters was maybe 3 …. 4 – maybe 5 at most?
I made 17 contacts tonight, my best DX being North Carolina, Illinois, Indiana and Ontario. Not bad for 5 Watts to a compromise antenna, eh? OK, so the W3EDP won’t earn me WAS or DXCC on 160 Meters, but at least now I have another band I can go to when other bands seem dead.
And my good friend Charles W2SH sent me an e-mail the other day, informing me about a book soon to come out from the ARRL on 160 Meter antennas, specifically for those of us who are real estate challenged. That is a must buy for me once the NJ Hamfest season starts back up again in March.
73 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!
6 Responses to “160 Meter fun”
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whats a w3edp
Whats a W3EDP.
What the heck is a W3EDP
Larry; Enjoy your posts and exploits…..I don’t do code well enough to work qrp. And voice qrp is just an expression of frustration!!!!
Keep the posts coming,as I try to understand the principles of the “wires” that you and the other qrp posters use.
I’ve always been amazed at how much one can do on 160 with a marginal antenna. I think too many people stay off of this band thinking they don’t have enough real estate for a proper antenna. If you can get some wire in the air and some wire on the ground, you can get on 160. The more wire the better, but do the best you can with what you got and you’ll be amazed.
73
Goody
The W3EDP is a multi-band antenna that is based on End Fed Zepp antennas that used to be deployed from dirigibles. The one I have (which was built as described in the following links) tunes nicely on all bands, 160M through 10M.
http://www.qsl.net/w5rin/Projects/Antennas/ae5vv/W3EDPAntennaHandout.pdf
http://skattagun.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-favorite-cheap-hf-antenna-w3edp.html
http://www.ok1rr.com/index.php/antennas/19-the-w3edp-antenna
http://www.dxzone.com/cgi-bin/dir/jump2.cgi?ID=26086
I built mine as shown in the bottom link by VE3CLQ.
It works great!
73 de Larry W2LJ