Wet string effect

M0RVB June 6, 2020

My bit of wet string in the loft, or rather, my fan dipole has been doing quite well of late, albeit only on FT8 and FT4.

By fan dipole you are no doubt thinking of a dipole made up of several, i.e. more than two, dipoles cut to various bands and all terminated on one coax. Well, yes, but I only ever got round to making it for 20m and 6m. But even there it has been doing well these past few weeks with all of Europe in easy reach and forays into USA as far as the west coast, Canada, South America, the top of Africa and the Middle East, plus occasional contacts in Turkey, Russia, Oman and Kazakhstan. Not too bad at all given the 20m wires are far from straight, being bent at the ends to fit and not straight horizontally either. I mean it's sort of an inverted vee with a level bit in the middle and does seem fairly omnidirectional, probably by accident but hey.

It will tune on all bands from 40m to 6m thanks to the YT-1200. Since I passed the Intermediate I've set the FT450D to 30W, the maximum for the tuner, but even before that as an M6 I had PSK QSOs as far as Chile and the Falkland Islands at the maximum permitted 10W, and goodness knows how little of that actually got out of the loft. And tonight a -16 FT8 report to central Brazil at over 5,500 miles.

I keep meaning to put up a random wire and a suitable un-un to see how much better an external antenna will be. No chance of a beam or anything excessive here as we stick out a bit and there would be complaints. But wires should be ok. Of course, the shack is in the spare bedroom, so upstairs and the other side of the house from where the wire would attach, so quite a run of coax...

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M0RVB February 12, 2023

Wet string++

With the impending trip and uncertainty of where / how I can set up an antenna I experimented with about 10 foot of wire from a 9:1 nun up to the window and down to the wardrobe. Far from idea but it's surprising just how far I got with no effort and 2.5W on 40m FT8: There is one 10m hit there too but I did not transmit in earnest. But the 10m reception plot is even more impressive: I can see how this "let's throw a bit of wire up a tree" can become rather fun!

M0RVB October 6, 2021

String mark 2

The Mark 2 bit of wet string seems to be going ok with 5W. Well, mostly. Concentrating on FT8, which is my usual mode of operation I can reach the east coast of the US with decent-ish reports, and all across Europe, all depending on conditions of course. However, it won't tune too well on 30m - two LED flashes on the YT-1200 - but I've made several contacts just fine. It does seem deaf higher up than 15. And no spots yet on 80. Plenty on 60 though, a band I could not get on to at all with the Mark 1 wet string affair. It picks up major noise below 30m but FT8 is still doing it's thing.

M0RVB September 30, 2021

New bit of wet string

Following on from me always saying it's about time I got some wire outside I have, temporarily put a 9:1 unun and random wire in the loft and connected it instead of the 20/6 fan dipole. So far, I can see my FT8 signals being received across Europe with one contact on 20m and one on 40, but it's getting on towards the evening now so I need to see what it is like tomorrow. Very un-scientific of course. Noise is high, but not much higher than the fan dipole. This one will tune down to 60m and 80m but I am yet to be convinced it is actually receiving. The fan dipole pegged out at 40m and that was a struggle - little wonder with so little wire. The YT-1200 will tune the random wire to 160m but it sets the house alarm off! The wire to the bell box runs through the loft and presumably whatever protection circuit there is in the alarm panel assumes someone has cut the wire.