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Showing posts from September, 2023

Compromise and Improvise: Not always a bad idea

  HF and Apartment Dwellers don't go together. It's like vinegar and milk. Sure, there are plenty of apartments or townhomes out there that can support (within reason) an outdoor HF wire antenna, or there are certainly commercially made compromise antennas out there. But I'm sure you can guess the efficiency will be in the toilet, and you're going to likely have to keep the power to a minimum. I have personally tried several indoor style antennas with varying degrees of success. First up was a Super Antenna (think Wolf River Coil style) in the middle of my living room floor near the sliding door to the balcony. At this point, my apartment was on the second floor. Several 10ish foot ground radials were spread out around it. I was running 10 watts of FT8 through it and checking PSKReporter to see where I was being heard. Although I was making it out consistently in the region, I was fighting to make a contact with a station only about 400 miles away. He was hearing me a