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It's support our parks weekend!

I also couldn't hear half the 20m stations listed on the POTA app, even from states I can routinely hear, and then I couldn't break any pileups with 100W and two different antennas, so I'm also going to blame the band conditions. I assume anyone contesting or ragchewing in the middle of the day is running 1500W and a yagi on a 200ft tower. Especially if they're complaining about medical conditions.

Heh, I hear you. I really want to enclose mine in a project box so it's cleaner, but unless I drill out holes big enough to feed PL259s through the box, I'd have to cut/crimp/solder and I'm not quite to the point of buying bulk coax, connectors, and tools. Although given how many RG8X/RG316 cables I've bought so far, it probably would've been the cheaper route.

Yeah, that's what you need, but you could get the toroids and RG58 and do it yourself for less (probably). I built mine in fifteen minutes and half of that was trying to get the zip ties to make the cable lay flat.

That's a transformer that matches a 2500 ohm antenna wire to 50 ohm coax. IIRC, only the center wire gets the full wraps around the toroid, unlike a choke where both the shield and center wire get wrapped equally. Edit: I'm late to the party

I do on the 9:1, but I didn't have a way to attach one to the 64:1 (I think the random screw hole is for a counterpoise) nor did I have a coax jumper to put in between at the time. I do now - I'll have to try it. Also, @TNFrank I was wrong. Very similar, but mine has a random screw hole near the top. Update: No continuity between the connector threads and the random screw.

Yes, that's what I said, 64:1. (Fixed my post.)

I DIY'd a choke with 3' of SO239/PL259 RG58, an FT-240-31, and a couple of zip ties. Was shooting for 12 turns but only got 11, which seems to still work okay for 20/40m. Should've bought longer coax. @Northcutt114 Check out https://www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/ for more info on building your own common mode choke. It's easy and only like $20-30 for the toroid and coax off amazon. @TNFrank I think that's the same 49:1 64:1 I use. I put the choke right at the unun.

That's awesome! And yes: They're also listed separately in the ARRL DXCC entities.

From AZ? Nice! How high up is your EFHW? I still can't hit the southwest. Saw some UT, AZ, and CO stations yesterday but couldn't get any of them on 20m, so I think I need to get my antenna up in a tree.

KB9VBR is on 40m right now and apparently I can hear WI pretty well with my gutter antenna on 40m. Couldn't hear the NC or CT POTA activators, though, and I think I've worked both those states on 20m.

I paid for the QRZ.com XML/API subscription tier, exported my logbook, and used https://stephenhouser.com/qso-mapper/. There might be better ways to do it using POTA data.

That's how I understand it. The end of the antenna doesn't radiate so you've got a big null overhead and no NVIS. This map isn't entirely accurate (dots are based off their license location on QRZ, not the parks they were at - I definitely didn't make a WI contact), but I've got a nice multi-state dead zone. I pick up a lot of Texas, Florida, and Alabama stations, though. That said, I have no idea if my EFRW/gutters or a lower horizontal EFHW would be better because I still couldn't hear any IL/OH/KY/MI stations when I tried it today.

Yeah. No schedule - If you want to try to make a QSO, let me know. Soonest I can be on is 9:30p-12a ET tonight. Wouldn’t take long to set up the vertical.

Oh man. Bluetooth would be nice. Would have cut down time by saving me from walking back and forth just to see I changed my SWR by 0.2.

I heard a Japanese station the other night on 40m! Grayline propagation, maybe? First time I heard one that far away. Much closer, but I also pick up a dude in Toronto pretty regularly who's running a directional antenna and like 400W. Incredibly strong signal (peaked over S9) but he couldn't hear me with my gutter antenna. Might try again with a vertical just to log an international contact.

Neat, thanks! I think dangling the NanoVNA from a short jumper connected to the elevated antenna feed point was good enough for trying to cut antenna wire at like 11pm last night. No need to drag a computer outside.

Your method will work, but showing the SWR sweep makes it easier to know where the dip is and if cutting off more wire is going to make things worse. Something like a RigExpert AA-35 might be easier to use but they cost way more than a NanoVNA, which is why everyone recommends them. My NanoVNA is basically a glorified SWR meter at this point. Turned off all the traces except Trace 0, set it to read SWR, and the set the sweep start/stop to the band I want. I hate the twitchy touchscreen and I can't get it to save settings - maybe I'll get a RigStick at some point or at least learn what that swirly Smith chart means, but for now it does what I need it to do as far as cutting wire or adjusting a vertical goes.

Oh. Yeah, that makes sense. This was meant to be "portable" since the HOA doesn't like permanent antenna installations without approval. I do use one of my gutters as an end fed random wire. RX isn't as good as the 17' whip I usually use and SWR is okay (1.3 on 20m but 2+ on 40m and 10m) but TX works well and the only visible part is the short wire from my gutter to the unun. Could fix the SWR with a different length of wire between the gutter and the unun but since all I use it for is POTA hunting on 20m, it's good enough for now.

FT-891 doesn't have an internal tuner and the manual says to keep it under 1.5:1 if possible. Figured making a linked wire would be less convenient but better SWR. I thought the radiation pattern got weird on harmonics - like, it works but you get lobes and weird nulls.

Some more info on building common mode chokes: https://www.karinya.net/g3txq/chokes/ I picked up an FT-240-31 and 5' of RG-58 - it wasn't enough to get 12 turns. Actually can't tell a difference receiving but my SWR was much better with the choke on the EFHW. Think I might try again with some longer coax and an FT-240-43. I just made a 20m EFHW last night with the cheapest finest 49:1 I could find on Amazon. Going to try it today, then crimp a spade connector on the end and see if I can link another section of wire to make it a 40m EFHW. If I was smart, I would've started with a 10m EFHW and made it a linked 10/20/40, but that's a problem/project for future me.

I've seen KB9VBR and K8MRD pop up a couple of times but I haven't been able to hear them. I haven't been able to pick up any Michigan stations (too close?), not sure why I couldn't hear K8MRD given how well I hear other Texas stations. I heard the pileups, though. Yikes. @TNFrank You might be out of range for my current antennas - I haven't had much luck picking up 10m stations at all and I have yet to reliably work a station farther west than Texas (i did make one 20m UT QSO but he was deep in the noise). I'll keep an eye (ear?) out, though!

Yeah, nothing on HF is cheap. Except maybe wire.

It's tiny, but you can do SSB from 28.300 to 28.500 on a technician. [source] Edit, dang, WRYS709 beat me to it.

I have had that conversation several times with my boss (who is a good Business Guy but not a Technical Guy) before he stopped asking about it. All the models I've tried produced great looking code... with functions that didn't exist or didn't work like the code wanted them to if the problem was even moderately complex. It was okay for generating API specs, but given how much refactoring I had to do to make some assets reusable, it would've been faster to run a few JSON examples through a converter and write the rest of the spec by hand. Might be useful some day, but today is not that day.