My QTH is near Joplin, Missouri.

New Antenna Fun

I read many articles written by the late W4RNL and carefully studied the information and charts on the vertical loops, and realized the take-off angles of my vertical delta loops were not the best for DX work.

So I put up the 100 foot inverted L antenna. Up 57 ft in a tall tree. Two 50 ft lengths of wire fed with ladder line. One 50 ft wire vertical, and the other 50 ft wire running at 333 degrees horizontally. So I have a upside down "L" fed at the top corner. According to the articles written by W4RNL, the take off angle of the inverted L is low, and gain is good on the higher bands.

If you look closely at the photo below, you can see the 400 ohm ladder line angling down to the back of the house. The 50 foot vertical wire is being highlighted by the black line.

There is a certain amount of mojo that comes with a new antenna. It is working well and I have worked some new dx I haven't snagged before. The real test of an antenna is to compare it to another. So I plan on putting up something else for some a/b comparisons. So far with the wire and 100 watts I have added A45, 5T0, v63, C50C, Ri0, A31, JY4, DU7, 4X1, 4L1, DS5, CN8, ZB2, 5N1, 9J2, Z37, T77, and much more to my log (10-30M). No Amplifier here. Fun stuff.

Update on Antenna:

January 26, 2013 Still using the inverted L, and having very good luck with snagging dx I couldn't contact before. I recently replaced the aging coax and the balun, and added a LDG-200ProII autotuner. The LDG has a bit more flexibility than the built-in Autotuner on the Icom 756PROII. The Horizontal leg of the L runs 330 degrees N away from the tree. The wire seems to favour Europe and works good into most of Africa and the middle east. I would like to put up a second Inverted L, and run the wire towards 130 degrees SE, and see if I could get into Asia better. With the current setup I have worked Ds5 south Korea, and a weak station in the philippines and some JAs. Not much in that direction. Hope to see you in the pile ups. So far, worked Clipperton Island on 4 bands., That was exciting being part of history. They are doing a great Job. If you get a chance, Google Clipperton Islands and read about the interesting history of the Island.

JT65 and JT9. Have been making contacts with JT65-HF-Comfort-3 and wsjtx. Working DX, but nothing rare. so far. my favorite modes along with CW. See you on the bands.

New Updates: My lovely bride Karen bought me the Elecraft KX3. And yes, I have drank a large glass of the KX3 kool-aid. My first contact with the KX3 was Bill N2CQR from Soldersmoke podcast fame. Bill was using his home built 17 meter rig that he has been working on and talking about on the podcast. He was nice enough to share my enthusiam by posting to his blog here: www.soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2013/03/qrp-ssb-with-new-rig.html . Hopefully I will be activating some of the SOTA summits here is Missouri. First, I would like to do a couple of test runs in the back yard.

I go by "Kelly", my middle name. We are not far from the KS, AR and OK state borders in SW Missouri.