I probably should have practiced.
Over the last month or so I’ve purchased some new radio gear to get me well-equipped to work portable with my Yaesu FT-891 on various modes and various amateur frequencies. I suppose I could have used a bit more operating practice with all the new equipment as when the morning of Winter Field Day arrived, I was having trouble getting any good SSB signals into or out of my new Chameleon F-Loop 3.0 magnetic loop antenna. I don’t have room to extend my MFJ 1979 vertical antenna to work any bands other than 10 meters and maybe 6 meters. I bought the magnetic loop antenna so that I could work on more bands than those and do so from indoors, since it’s Winter and is cold outside.
Things didn’t get off to a good start, I’ll admit. Having only received the Chameleon F-Loop 3.0 magnetic loop antenna an hour before the Winter Field Day exercise was scheduled to begin, I was not afforded much time to learn how to use the antenna. Nonetheless, I will state that assembly of the CHA-FLOOP-3.0 antenna was extremely simple and I had everything connected and ready to use within a few minutes.
My first attempts of using the magnetic loop antenna weren’t great. My intention was to set up at the kitchen table and deploy the antenna so that it was angled out of a sliding glass door that opened up to our deck. This didn’t work out for reasons I’m unsure of. I could not hear a peep on any band I tuned up to. After reading more of the operating manual that came with the antenna, one section suggested that the antenna works best closer to earth with some performance increases noticed by elevating the antenna by one to two loop-widths. So, I assumed my problem, then, was that as I was working from the second floor of my home, I was higher off the ground than the suggested one to two loop-widths above ground. Knowing nothing else to do for troubleshooting a magnetic loop antenna, I made the decision to pack up the shack and move it to the garage which would put me closer to the ground.
I set up shop in the garage, still using the CHA Carbon Fiber Tripod which put the bottom of the antenna loop around a foot off the ground. I STILL did not have any luck reeling in any signals even though I was sure I was tuning the antenna correctly. I almost gave up until I start playing around with the antenna by picking it up and waving it around a bit. It turned out that having it up a few loop-widths above the ground actually does make a difference. I had the immediate idea of grabbing my camera tripod and mounting the antenna on that. This was the key to success for my day. After having given the antenna a bit of lift, I was able to log ten QSOs for the day. Only three of them count toward Winter Field Day points, but I’ve learned so much about using the Chameleon F-Loop 3.0 magnetic loop antenna and some of the different applications I’ve started using for digital mode operations recently. I made one WFD contact via JS8, for example. The other two WFD QSOs were SSB using my new Heil Pro 7 headset and hand switch that I got during a recent trip to Ham Radio Outlet.
At the end of the day, I managed ten QSOs across three bands and four modes and learned a lot about my radio, my antennas, my logging software, and contesting. And I had a helluva great time doing it. I’m planning to finish the WFD event tomorrow with some more practice.
See you on the air, y’all.
73 DE K2MAS
K2MAS.net 