Friday, September 11, 2009

The QDFA Strikes Back

I wasn't prepared to let tens of hours of work go down the drain. Several sources have indicated that antennas with vertical elements such as the EWE and K9AY depend on good ground to produce good nulls. And that radials is one way to improve their performance on poor ground. So I found some rather thick copper string, surplus from navaid upgrades at the airport, and laid the wire on the ground at 45 degrees intervals.

I don't know if it's the radials or condtions in general or what, but it appears that the QDFA is indeed functioning better now. I was able to null the slop from St. Petersburg 1494 enough to get a readable signal from Longyearbyen-1485. Furthermore, I tested 1557, where the 58-degrees Asia beverage had Taiwan and France (backlobe) equal strength. The North America beverages had Lithuania very strong on their backlobes, while the QDFA (which points directly towards Lithuania on its back lobe) had Taiwan soundly on top with France underneath.

So maybe, maybe, maybe. The coming night will tell.

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