Since we got the antenna up for 160m it was time to get an amp working on the band. Me and SM3JLA converted the amp last weekend and got it working just fine on 160m. We added a bit extra C and L in the pi-filter. The input board was already prepared for usage on 160m so even though we don’t have 1:1 in input SWR it’s well below 3:1 so the tuner in the radio handles it just fine. This might be fixed in the future though.
Here are some pictures of the mod
Here are the pictures I just promised in my earlier post. I found some energy to upload them to the page but I haven’t written any comments to the pictures. TNX Anna for the pictures!
Enjoy!
This weekend SM2XJP helped me to fix the top aluminum tube for the 160m vertical. It now consist of 24m of WIBE tower sections and an tapered aluminum tube which is in total 14m long making the vertical 37m high. On Friday evening when me and the gf arrived to the QTH I constructed the mounting brackets for the CUE DEE clamps which holds the aluminum tube. These clamps make it a lot easier to hoist the top tube instead of regular exhaust clamps which would have been a nightmare to use, atleast for this.
On Saturday morning SM2XJP arrived and I climbed up the tower to mount the bracket for the top tube. When that was done we ate lunch and after lunch started to hoist the pipe. After a while in the tower I finally managed to get the tube into position and the guy lines were secured and on the way down I removed the temporary steel guy wires. After a cup of coffee me and SM2XJP spent the afternoon tuning the antenna to have 50 ohms.
We also struggled a bit before we managed to mount the 7/16″ connector to the RG-17 cable but after a while we managed. I bought some 7/16″ connectors for 1/2″ cable from SM2A (SM2ILF) which can be used for RG-17 if you remove some parts of it. You will not have the cable mechanically fixed very well but some tape solves that.
Now we’ll see how well the antenna works, when we have an amp working on 160m!
Here are some pictures, I will post more action pictures later when I have time.
This weekend I brought with me some 500m of new RG-58 cable to use when attaching the beverages to the antenna switch located in the shack. All the cables were used up and everything is now connected to the 4×8 beverage switch and remote switchable via the internet for remote control. SM2LIY barely got any sleep during the weekend because he could not stop listening to the broadcasting stations all over the world and I got impressed by the beverages. I have always thought we do hear very well at SJ2W but now we hear even better, which I barely thought was possible.
Last year I (SM2WMV) worked A LOT of qsos on 80m, this winter I think that 160m will be the band with the hopefully soon finsihed 160m vertical and all these listening antennas.
