Ham Radio Help Desk

Last fall I purchased a QRPKits.com DC40A QRP transceiver. At around $40 it is a no brainer purchase for any kit builder attempting to keep in practice. I really wanted to try an Elecraft, but budgets are budgets. I have my main rig now so I finally decided to take the built and tested DC40A board and house it. During testing I soldered a piece of coax straight to the antenna points on the board. The center conductor broke at the board pretty quick. I was motivated to tie that antenna signal to a bulkhead BNC.
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In a recent email from the ARRL concerning ARES topics, a writer compares the coaxial vertical dipole antenna with a J-Pole for VHF work. He says…

“With no real models for comparison, it is difficult to compare patterns for each antenna. I would suspect that the J-Pole would not have an omni-directional pattern and would therefore produce a lobe or lobes giving gain in some directions”

Really?
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We have looked at the 43 foot antenna available from DX Engineering and Zero Five alongside the BigIR product from SteppIR. In addition, the BigIR was simulated using the optional 80 meter coil.

Both antenna types approach the vertical HF antenna problem with unique solutions.
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As we continue our EZNEC simulation research for the 43 foot and BigIR antennas we finally are looking into the 80 meter band.
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Continuing our NEC Shootout between the 43 foot vertical available from DX Engineering or Zero Five and the adjustable height BigIR antenna available from SteppIR antennas we now analyze them in the 40 meter band.
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Continuing our NEC Shootout between the 43 foot vertical available from DX Engineering or Zero Five and the adjustable height BigIR antenna available from SteppIR antennas we now analyze them in the 20 meter band.
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Continuing our NEC Shootout between the 43 foot vertical available from DX Engineering or Zero Five and the adjustable height BigIR antenna available from SteppIR antennas we now analyze them in the 15 meter band.
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In a previous post we promised to analyze the merits of the 43 foot tall tuner-required antenna vs. the adjustable BigIR vertical from SteppIR. We did and here are the results.
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Considering a vertical? Among all the dipoles, beams and other types of antennas, the lowly vertical has regained some popularity thanks, in part, to the BigIR SteppIR and, more recently, the 43 foot vertical offered by DX Engineering and Zero Five antennas.
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A fellow named Mel gave me permission to share his elegant method to locate the end of the copper tape in SteppIR antennas. The position of that tape needs to be known occasionally during maintenance. To quote…
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