75 DXCC in two days using ft8 on 40 meters with a hamstick on the washing pole with a little truck mirror mount. Not too shabby. All the best with the channel. Ian

@AmateurRadioUK

Жыл бұрын

Hi Ian. 75 DXCC in 2 days is good by anybody's standards. Was that during a contest (maybe CQWW)? If not then it's even more of an achievement.

In keeping with the maxim, any antenna is better than no antenna.

I just did a similar test on the Ampro 40 against my 90' end fed wire and the Ampro did really well against it. There's was hardly any difference whatsoever and the Ampro was on a magmount on the car roof parked on my drive. It was great to see your comparison too, keep up the videos, cheers.

I keep thinking of making a mini beam for 17m using 4 no 17m ampro whips I might start with a, dipole first using them, cheers great video

Interesting experiment James. Yes, we knew the End Fed would win. But the Ham-sticks are a viable option as you found out. You might have included a screen shot of each antennas performance to demonstrate your findings. I live in an HOA antenna restricted community. As such I mounted a 37' OCFD (Off Center Fed Dipole) in my 20'x20' garage attic in an awkward zig-zag sideways "L" shape to fit. It got me on the air. I also mounted a 53' End Fed Longwire on the eve of my home up 10 feet. It was an improvement over the OCFD. Then I tried a mag mounted 40m Ham-stick on top of my cargo van in my driveway. Surprisingly, I made two times more contacts with it than the wire antennas! The Ham-sticks work! Stay well my friend!

As with all antennas, it's a case of context. Whilst the Ampro is a compromise, so is a 80m dipole at a low height, which most people have - if they can fit one in at all. It will take a lot more effort, and generate a lot more complaints, when putting up a dipole, compared to a short vertical on a shed that can be easily removed after use. Then there's the ability to drive to a good location, take a minute to attach the magmount and antenna on the car, and start working 80 (without neighbour RFI). If you're near the sea, the whole situation will change considerably and boost the signals both ways by many dB - but only for the stick, not the dipole. You can get over the matching problem and use of ATU if you make a shunt coil and battery-clip it to the vertical and ground parts of the magmount. Qualification: use Ampro sticks (currently down to 40m) several days of the week, as /p.

@AmateurRadioUK

2 жыл бұрын

Some very good points there. You're absolutely right.....it's about context.

Part 2 of the test should be in a lay-by 15 mins on say 80m then 20m and see who gets most spots then while you’re setting up the EFHWs 😉😂 Good stuff James 👍👏👏

@AmateurRadioUK

3 жыл бұрын

Now there's an idea!!! That's probably more of a candidate for the field once the weather starts to improve. I'll stick it on the list of ideas for next year!

@MrMesospheric

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! Practicality is almost always overlooked. Quick run out to screw the Ampro in, no need for cables over the ground, or several minutes getting a EFHW up - if the UK winds allow it at all!

You did well to tune that in on a magmount, with the ham sticks or ampros, UK versions normally once you start going below 40 meters you can run into all sorts of earth bonding problems, I've been using ampros for years and have a good collection of them from topband to 4 meters, from 20 to 10 meters there reasonably pretty good and I've had some good results on 40 mobile, thanks for the video Adam G7CRQ

@AmateurRadioUK

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Adam. I had it fully extended (as long as was physically possible) to get it to tune that low down the band & it still wasn't quite long enough. Could have done with an extra couple of cm of extension on the whip because the SWR was slightly high (although not horrendous). I guess that there is a reasonable amount of metal in that shed to act as a ground plane. Even if there wasn't a physical electrical connection, it's still going to try to couple capacitively. It was obvious that the EFHW was going to out-perform the AMPRO. Any idiot could have predicted that. What did surprise me was how little the difference actually was. I thought that it would be much more noticeable on the WSPR tests! I'm thinking about getting another one for a higher band. I like 20m but wondering about experimenting with 17m or 15m because I haven't done a lot with those bands yet. I can't decide!!!

@adam-g7crq

3 жыл бұрын

@@AmateurRadioUK hi there, I'd go for both the 20m and 17m ampros and get the others on the lead up to next summer, there's loads of things to try out with these things, if you click on my icon should take you into some of the videos I posted, the latest one from this morning was with me listening to some VK'S on 20 meters using a ampro20, the antenna is about 60 foot above ground level

That was interesting.. thanks

Nice job 73 👍👍

@AmateurRadioUK

3 жыл бұрын

Thanks Tim.

I use a pair of ampro on 17 and 10 and they are phased together through 1 feedline they work superb Interested to know what the receive is like using the 80 m ampro especially if you used a pair as it could be rotated allowing noise to be nulled , have you made many contacts on 80 ssb ? Cheers

@AmateurRadioUK

2 жыл бұрын

To be completely honest, I don't do a lot of operating on 80m. My main bands are 40m & 20m, purely because my main area of interest these days is WWFF & SOTA (both chasing from home & going out portable while activating). These are the main two bands which seem to have the most WWFF & SOTA activity on them. I would be interested to find out how you are phasing these antennas together. Are you using some sort of delay line? How are you dealing with the impedance mismatch? Are you using Christman phasing?

@nigelbrooks6756

2 жыл бұрын

@@AmateurRadioUK hi phasing them is very simple indeed I use a short patch coax cable lead , a T (so239) piece so one dipole centre ( horizontal) connects to another dipole centre ( a V dipole) with one feedline , I start by getting correct swr on one pair then the other pair as individual dipoles then connect together , it really is very simple similar to the octopus by mfj , it works great

i use a 40m and 20m hamstick on triple mag mount on a sheet of metal in my en suite shower room with a counterpoise and for a seriously compromised situation it does well on ft8 8 watts from my ic-705. 73's

@AmateurRadioUK

3 жыл бұрын

Nice. I'm also planning on getting the 20m version of this antenna, so it will be interesting to do some comparisons & see how it performs. Obviously it is a big compromise (which I expected, considering how short the antenna is) but I was surprised how well it worked. Will likely be more videos experimenting with these Ampro mobile antennas in the new year.

iam used the hamstick work fantastic by my mobile station 73

@AmateurRadioUK

3 жыл бұрын

Some people are quick to criticise hamsticks but they can work very well. They are most definitely a compromise and a full size antenna will always out perform a hamstick. Having said that, I have been surprised by how well they can perform, especially if conditions are favourable.

@MrMesospheric

2 жыл бұрын

@@AmateurRadioUK No, at the coast, the sticks will easily outperform a full sized antenna that's not vertical, and/or is slightly inland. I know; I've done the tests.

@AmateurRadioUK

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrMesospheric If you are at the coast with that incredibly good salt water ground, then yes. Especially if looking for DX (low take-off angle) contacts. Unfortunately, the majority of people live inland & are too far away from the coast for that to be a factor.....I agree with the sentiments though. I'm not sure if that would be true for very high take-off angle (NVIS) contacts? I suspect that the full-size horizontal antenna might still do better than a vertical?

had 2 80m jobbys back to back on a dipole center,bastard to tune and was complete shit on tx,think narrowbanded dummy load!.