Hello the name is Jay , KB8O.

I enjoy the antenna performance and testing side of the hobby as well as DXing and contesting.

The SteppIR DB-11. It's on 45 feet of Rohn 25G with a Yaesu G-800DXA Rotor. I feed the SteppIR with LMR-600 Coax. You can see one leg of my low band loop about 40 feet above the beam.

SteppIR Beam with 1100' low band loop antenna feed point off in the distant left, one point of the loop is dog boned to the right side of the beam in the tree.

I moved to a new QTH in the middle of 2014, the old QTH didn't allow for low banding so the current setup here for low band is a 1100 foot loop antenna which is pictured below. The loop performs extremely well on all bands and is 2 wave lengths on 160m.

The loop feed point is at 80 feet.

The loop in average is near 80 feet when pulled up high in low winds, and near 50 feet when weather gets bad, and is fed with about 80 feet of 450 ohm ladder line, into a DX Engineering 4:1 10kw balun with about 5 feet of LMR400 to the shack. The loop performs on all bands and is great for DX from 160-10m. New loop feed point below after lightning strike...

K1N Navassa Island  (loop antenna)

 Lord Howe Island  (loop antenna)

After taking a direct lightning strike to the loop I have moved the feed point away from the house and made a quick disconnect point to ground... The Wireman 503 wire survived the strike with no issue , but the cheap 450 ohm ladder line was a puddle of plastic. I have replaced everything with DX Engineering products .

For low band DXing I use the DX Engineering 4 Sqaure system spaced at 98 feet side length.

DX Engineering 4 square video :

https://youtu.be/sanKiES69kM

 

 

I run a Multi-two Contest station and Array Solutions FilterMax 4 system for filtering. I have added a 160M ladder line feed dipole inside the loop for close in work. This dipole is on 200 feet of RG-213 coax.

This is Desk 1 my main operating position. Elecraft K3S and P3 with PR 781. FilterMax 4 Filter system . To the right of the radio is the Yaesu rotor and SteppIR controller. The tuner is a Palstar HF Auto , and the Amplifier is a OM Power 2000+ .

Desk 1

Desk 1

Desk 1

Desk 1

Desk 1

 

Desk 2 is below and is used mostly for Multi-op contest and also used via remote. This desk consist of another Icom 7600, FilterMax4 filter system , LP100 meter. The tuner is a Palstar AT5K and another OM Power 2000+ amplifer .

Desk 2

Desk 2

Desk 2

 

Low Band System filters from DX Engineering .

 

KB8O on the left , KB8ZUN on the right @ 60 feet on the 4th story beacon light on the Lorain Harbor Light House.

Older pictures from the last QTH below...

 

This is how I started my radio hobby in the beginning with a medium scale VHF/UHF/SHF contest station. I used all M2 antennas and did pretty well in a noisy location right in the city. The bands were 6/2/222/432/1.2ghz.

I spend most of my time on HF either DXing or Contesting.

73, Jay KB8O