Cylinder dipole in PACC

Booster - Cylinder dipole 22"

In the PACC I used a new cylinder dipole, that I have build recently.
I built the Booster to experiment with larger cylinders and a larger coil. To go below 15 m.

The  Booster  has two cylinders, that each are made
of 4  Energy Booster  cans of aluminium, that are cut open and bolted together. The length of each cylinder is 22 cm. The wing span of the dipole is 22 inches. The coil former has a diameter of 110 mm and the coil has 15 turns. The taps are two turns apart. The Booster resonates at 10 MHz.

The cylinder of 4 cans PA1B

On Friday I made the coil and just before the contest I made the taps on the coil. During the contest I used the taps that are two turns apart. The Booster could not be MATCHED with the taps 4 turns apart. I suspect that the impedance on the end of the twin lead in the shack is too low, or too high, for my symmetrical tuner. So I switched to the taps that are 2 turns apart. I later realized that I did not try taps that are one turn apart.

I started with checking the MATCHING of the Booster on 15 m, 20 m and 40 m. Matching on 15 m and 40 m is very easy. Matching on 20 m is difficult.

Before the PACC, I made the first QSO with the   Booster   on 40 m, with 7S6WRD from Sweden. My RST was 339. hi. Not a very strong signal, but it works.

PA1B in the PACC 2016 

PACC    

I made a total of 32 QSO's with the Booster. 25 QSO's were made on 40 m with 3 W and 2 QSO's with 150 mW. On 20 m I made 5 QSO's with 4 W.

I had no intention to make hundreds of QSO's, but I wanted to know, how the Booster would work. 

Saturday

On 15 m and 20 m there was no activity, So I started on 7 MHz. The first 3 QSO's were made with 2 Dutch stations (PA) and with F5IN, all with S&P. Then I stopped to visit some friend.

Around 17:00 utc, I started again on 40 m. I decided to give CQ. To my surprise, I was visited by stations from DL, HA, OE, OK (4), SM and UA (3). I was pleasantly surprise by the stations from Russia that answered my CQ, over a distance of more than 1300 miles.

Sunday

Sunday morning on 40 m gave a mix of stations from PA and DL. When the propagation peaked, I could QSO with PI4CC and with DL5JQ using just 150 mW. WOW. But in the next QSO's I needed a power of 3 watt. hi.

At about 11 utc I went to 20 m and made 5 QSO's with 5 DXCC countries, all QSO's with 4 W.

During the contest I frequently went to 20 m and 15 m. Most activity was on 40 m, as you can see in the table.

The Booster is doing fine on 40 m and 20 m. I worked 10 DXCC countries from the dormer window with the Booster at a height of 7 meters above the ground.

Cylinder Dipole by PA1B  -  Taps two turns apart
Click to enlarge

Cutting the cans  -  Mooi schaartje hè.

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