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[IRCA] Desert DXPedition
90-second Desert-DXPedition report:
CX were excellent 042815--050215. A LOT of time was wasted on trying to get good F/B on D-Kaz 140 x 22's...until we went back to the basics*** and THEN it really hummed. Two D-Kaz 140 x 22 in Broadside (340-foot separation) produced marvelous results; heard well over a hundred stations not previously copied. The real satisfaction was hearing stations down the bore-sight of the Broadside while the antenna rejected other Co's lots closer but outside of what appeared to be a nice, narrowly-focused main beam.
Experiments with a 1000-foot MW horizontal loop were disappointing (likely, at 25 feet, not high enough).
A 1000-foot BOG worked as BOGs usually do...though F/B nulls were not great.
Were able to load a 30-foot vertical in such a way as to create a fairly-wide "sweet spot" that increased antenna sensitivity without creating a sharply-tuned situation.
At one point we had five antennas up over a few acres of desert and did a lot of comparison recording. We also "pre-swept" some antennas using a RigExpert Antenna Analyzer. That showed us SWR, Reactance, Resistance, Phase etc.
Then the winds picked up and that precluded our intended comparisons among two large Super-Loops and some âD-Kaz-on-steroidâ lengths with larger aspect ratios. Those are now goals for the next DXPedition.
Power this year was provided via solar cells recharging deep-cycle batteries that powered our lap-top-charging inverter. (We were doing so much construction that we had the down-time for re-charging.) At the Ft. Wayne July convention we hope to present a seminar on the RIGHT way to power field equipment for continuous, no-charging, low-noise operation <g>
Weâll be sorting the data for months. So far we've published a log of the Broadside catches (ping me if you want an Excel copy).
*** We turned up some troublesome results with extended Cat-5 transmission lines that will be the basis for a follow-on report.
Cheers!
Mark Durenberger
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