K3/10 in Attic Looking for Six Meters

[Frank MacDonell]

Maybe the cards are stacked against me, but I would like to go for the six
meter band ssb. My problem is low power and attic location for antennas.
Presently, I have a 66' piece of wire (center fed dipole) which works great
(for PSK, CW and JT65-HF) using the ATU in the K3. I would like to get the
group's opinion on antenna options or do I have to upgrade with the KPA100?
Thanks in advance.

--
Frank KD8FIP
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[Don Wilhelm-4]

  Frank,

Before you consider higher power, get the antenna outside.  Even 100
watts to an attic antenna can be problematic in some cases.

If you have no choice for the antenna, then go for the KPA100 but start
out at lower power levels to see what happens, devices plugged into the
house wiring often do not like the presence of RF and do crazy things,
and you can bet that the house wiring will pick up RF from the antenna.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 3/19/2011 8:01 PM, Frank MacDonell wrote:
> Maybe the cards are stacked against me, but I would like to go for the six
> meter band ssb. My problem is low power and attic location for antennas.
> Presently, I have a 66' piece of wire (center fed dipole) which works great
> (for PSK, CW and JT65-HF) using the ATU in the K3. I would like to get the
> group's opinion on antenna options or do I have to upgrade with the KPA100?
> Thanks in advance.
>
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[AC7AC]

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[Steve Kavanagh]

Frank:

I have done quite a bit of operating on 6m SSB with 10 watts and a dipole (and in the past with 2 watts and a dipole).  Unfortunately I haven't had a K3 to do it with, but one the current versions is a K2 and homebrew transverter.

My dipole heights have ranged from 12 feet to 30 feet, but that's mostly been at hilltop portable locations during contests.  That experience makes me think that you will likely be able to work people with your current setup (assuming you can match the antenna), but that it will be something of a challenge, as it has been for me.  You probably won't find much until the sporadic E season starts around mid May.  

>From hilltop sites, using 10W and a rotatable dipole at 12 ft, I can sometimes work mountin-top big gun stations out to about 400 km distance with no enhanced propagation at all.

Really amazing 6m QSOs are rare with this sort of setup....but they do happen.  I've worked Europe (at sunspot cycle peak) and the Caribbean (on summer sporadic E) with 2W/dipole@30', called CQ with that same setup (but with the dipole at 12 ft over flat land) on an apparently dead band and raised a W5, and so on.

I've also operated with 100 W and a 3 element beam on rare occasions ....it's MUCH easier that way !

73,
Steve VE3SMA


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[Phil Salas]

It  is amazing what you can do with just a dipole on 6-meters when the band
opens - though not sure about mounting it inside your attic.  I've been
using just a 6-meter dipole mounted on my chimney here in the Dallas area
for probably four years now.  No problem working all over the country when
the band opens, though I have been using my K3 at 100 watts (IC-706MKIIG
prior to the K3).  Just upgraded to a 4-element 6-meter beam - and I'm field
testing a KPA500!

Phil - AD5X

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[n7ws]

On Field Day in 2009 I took a look at 6-meters.  Mind you, my antenna is a dipole, mounted inverted-vee style, with the apex at 45 feet that consists of two wires fed in parallel, one cut for 80-meters and the other for 40-meters.  The RG-8 run is about 175'.

It's hot in Tucson in June so a few clubs head for the mountains near here and operate from the (relative) cool 8000-9000+ feet altitude.  One of those line-of-sight stations was cluttering up 50.125 and covering up some Es stations.  

So I tuned a bit lower in frequency and heard a CW CQ.  It was JL8GFB. I gave a call, expecting nothing and he came right back to me. He continued to call CQ for quite a while without any further takers.  An hour and ten minutes later, I heard JA7WSZ calling CQ and worked him too.  So the band was open to JA for over an hour and no one was paying attention.

Considering the mismatch loss in the line my ERP was probably a few watts. I did have a HB receiver preamp on the K3, however.

Wes N7WS

--- On Sun, 3/20/11, Phil & Debbie Salas <[hidden email]> wrote:

> It  is amazing what you can do
> with just a dipole on 6-meters when the band
> opens - though not sure about mounting it inside your
> attic.  I've been
> using just a 6-meter dipole mounted on my chimney here in
> the Dallas area
> for probably four years now.  No problem working all
> over the country when
> the band opens, though I have been using my K3 at 100 watts
> (IC-706MKIIG
> prior to the K3).  Just upgraded to a 4-element
> 6-meter beam - and I'm field
> testing a KPA500!
>
> Phil - AD5X
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
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[Ken G Kopp]

       
I don't know if your antenna in the attic is due to antenna
restrictions or building construction, but here's a suggestion.

My K3 has a second receiver whose sole purpose is to
monitor six meters.  It's antenna connection only appears
at the BNC jack on the rear of the K3.

The antenna for the second receiver is a "low-band" GP
comprised mostly of Maxrad mobile antenna parts, mounted
on a base station antenna conversion kit.  The base station
kits are intended for VHF use, and the four supplied radials
are "short" for 6M. I've replaced them with 55" whips intended
as the radiator of a low-band mobile antenna.

I used five of the 55" whips intended for the lower portion
of the "low-band" commercial band to build my 6M GP.

While not "invisible", the antenna can be very unobtrusive.,
and could be mounted on a toilet vent pipe close to the
roof and might be not noticed.  I can provide a photo to
anyone interested.

BTW, it's a little-known fact that the 5/8-wave 2M mobile
antennas that many of us have on our vehicles are very
close to resonance on 6M and will work reasonably well
on that band.

73!
Ken Kopp - K0PP
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[david m]

On Sun, 2011-03-20 at 12:00 -0400, [hidden email]
wrote:
> Re: [Elecraft] K3/10 in Attic Looking for Six Meters

I have a similar setup.  I have a ~120 ft dipole made out of ribbon
cable strung under my eaves, and wrapped around the sides of the house.
Not ideal,  but it is nearly invisible,  and I have worked 44 of 50
states on 75m SSB, many contacts on 40m and 20m (mainly PSK31, but some
SSB), several in Europe, all with K2/100 #7006 with an external
autotuner.  I'm in the planning stages for a better wire antenna in the
backyard.

David  AJ4TF

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