Well after seeing one in the flesh at Atlanticon, I broke down and ordered
one of Ed Brenheiser's <
http://www.wa3wsj.com> Vertical Black Widow Fishing
Pole Antennas (VBWFPA). Its a vertical antenna based on a 20 foot
telescoping Black Widow crappie pole. It got a loading coil that lets you
resonate on 40-30-20 meters.
It arrived today and I took it out and set it up in the garden, ran 25 feet
of RG58U to it and fired up my K-1 and later my FT817. 40 meters was very
dead and very noisy. I heard weak speed demons down around 7030. I made q
uick QSO into PA around 7040 I got a 539. I put the jumper on the coil and
fired up on 20 and that was quite quiet and worked some 4s and an 8. 549 to
589. I fired up the FT817 and worked a 4 on 20 SSB.
I am pretty happy with the unit. First time it took me 10 minutes to setup.
Once I saw the way of it, I am convinced Ed's statement of less than 5
minutes to setup is definitely on the mark.
I also had picked up a 5 watt Unisolar flexible solar panel and that worked
nice. Using a 7AH gell cell, it kept pace about dead even with the FT817 and
with the K-1 the battery was charging all the while I used it. I would think
that for an extended use with a decent weather forecast you could get away
with a one or two 2AH gel cells instead of the heavier 7AH and I used a 25
foot piece of RG58U w/BNCs. I have a 15 footer around here somewhere and
that would shave off another 1/4 pound or so.
I took a half dozen pix and they can be seen at
<
http://www.wulfden.org/NVQS/VBWFPA/>
--
Cheers ... 73 de brian, n1bq, underhill center, vt, usa
_______________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Post to:
[hidden email]
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraftYou must subscribe to post.
Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, Unsub etc):
http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htmElecraft page:
http://www.elecraft.com
Locked
