Michael Burkhardt’s Weblog

Random Wire Antenna Update #2

So the antenna is up and running. I did end up trimming the wire to 91 feet and extending the counterpoise to 65 feet. I was able to work several DXCC entities across several bands:

So, the antenna appears to be functioning reasonably well.

However

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The noise floor is REALLY HIGH, especially on 20, 40, and 80. I'm not sure if this is because the noise is louder at the new QTH or because the long wire is inherently noisy. I suspect the latter. I think I'll toss a 40m dipole up there temporarily to get a baseline.

Now I’m wondering… should I try to mitigate the noise on receive, perhaps by setting up a Loop-on-Ground antenna? Or should I switch gears entirely and put up Caroline Windom or a G5RV?

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