More Radio Stuff & Friday Music on Tuesday??

So once again – if something can be screwed up – it will be . . .

Busy times, so I scheduled several posting to drop – don’t know for sure how I screwed up – but I managed to do it – OOPS . . .

Now onto some radio stuff . . .

The loop antenna and the wire antenna both perform beyond my expectations – but – They are both all done doing what they do when you get above 30mhz – so I picked this up from Nevada Radio . . .

I had to pay about 50 bucks for shipping – worth every penny – ordered zero dark thirty on a Monday morning – it was sitting on my porch Thursday afternoon ( not Tuesday afternoon – LOL! ) Incredible service from Nevada Radio!

One of the negatives mentioned in reviews – the radials come loose after time – most radio geeks are not mechanics per se – people say use lock nuts and or thread lock – how about tighten the damn things down!

The only fidgety part is getting the first “down” radial started – the threads are very well done – you have to have just the right angle – don’t cross thread as that would not end well – unlike a lot of the others Scanking uses solid radials – not foam filled hollow tubes held in with set screws – this is a precision built antenna – good stuff!

Ready to go outside and get install-ated – YAY!

Really straight forward – flat board to clamp to – a little concrete pad for the weight to settle on – pretty much done!

I just thought I got some strange looks from folks with just the loop! – LOL!

A couple of pieces of chain link fence top rail – about 4 hours of labor total – ran a #6 ground from the top of the mast to the ground rod – no real provision to ground the “negative” side of the antenna – bundled the coax with the rest and into the entry box – in-line coaxial lightning Arrester/Supressor and into the radio room . . .

Add any more antennas gonna have to put another entry box up – <VBFG> – LOL!

And it works!

And a quick video of Foss field ATC – prior to adding this antenna the only way to hear it – and poorly I might add – was outside with a portable . . .

I get like 6 or 7 NOAA weather broadcast stations – from Huron SD to halfway across Minnesota – my available listening time slots and weather satellite pass times have not overlapped as yet – so I don’t know about that yet . . .

500khz to 30mhz? A lot of the comments about it states that the discone is a little deaf in that frequency range – for the most part I’m finding it performs right in line with the wire antenna – of course neither performs quite as good as the loop with the LNA . . .

One advantage the discone has is vertical receive orientation on lower frequencies – the white fiberglass part sticking out the top – signal strength may be a little less – but the noise floor is reduced significantly – you end up with a better signal to noise ratio (SNR) overall – which is a good thing.

Remember folks – everything you are doing with all this radio “stuff” is a compromise – either physical space limitations – money limitations – or both. Without those limits? Things “can” get a little out of hand – here is one of the best examples of no concerns over money/space conundrum I know of <<Click Here>> – glorious isn’t it? And <<Click Here>> to get an idea of the scale of the discone at the Titan 2 site . . .

The tiny white dot is a balloon at about 65 thousand feet seen through the discone early one morning . . .

So we’re heading straight into the bottom line of this post – two things for you . . .

#1 – The Scanking discone 500khz to 2000mhz is overall a good to very good antenna – very well made – not a lot of space needed to put it up – a lot of folks just don’t have a “spot” to put up a random wire antenna and they sure don’t want to spend the money for a loop– easy to assemble – once you get the first downward radial in place just match the angle on the others – if you want the lower frequency coverage – down to 500khz – like I wanted – it’s a really good choice . . .

#2 – I still don’t understand all I don’t know about WordPress – LMAO!

Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!