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History 2000-2009
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Modern day history, let's see what I can remember! In July 2000 we moved from MD to Citrus County, Florida where we purchased a newer home plus 2 acres of sand. Almost as immediately I purchased a AB-577 surplus military mast and installed my Bencher tri-bander to establish the fact that their are no antenna restrictions. A photo is shown in the later photos folder. Since then added a second tower, 40' of Rohn 25 which originally had 6, 2 and 70cm antennas for terrestrial operations. This is not a good area for terrestrial operating, being West of the main NE/SW path puts you in a dead zone. I learned this the hard way. Thus those antennas were taken down and replaced with a 2 el cubical quad (see photo in later photo section). This was interesting to have two antennas for the higher HF bands. The quad and the tribander worked about the same. The quad have a much higher quality feed line may have helped. In 2007 I decided that I need to have a real antenna for 160, the very low inverted L really was not good. Thus, I found a duo band (160/80 meter) vertical in the ON4UN book. It is a quarter wave vertical on 80 with a wire coming off the top to make it into a inverted L for 160. At the top there is a decoupling coil to remove the tail wire when the antenna is used on 80. At first I installed four 160 elevated resonant radials. The antenna worked but how well I was not sure so I removed the elevated radials and installed 40 buried radials (about 1/2mile of wire or so). This antenna works well on both bands. There are two L networks at the base, one for each band. I must physically select which band to use. I also hung a quarter wave vertical off the side of the tower for 40 meters. This antenna works very well. I have two feed lines to this multi-band antenna, thus can operate on any two bands.
Equipment wise, I have sold all the older gear and purchased a Elecraft K3 kit. It is a terrific transceiver. My second transceiver is a Yaesu FT-100D which also has a pretty good receiver.
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