Another Wire in the Air

Success!

After work today, I was able to hang the other end of the antenna in the walnut tree. It took about 10 tries with the bow and arrow to get the fishing line in the right place in the tree. I looped the end of the antenna wire through the insulator and soldered it together (score another win for the butane soldering iron), tied the paracord to the other end of the insulator, and tied the far end of the paracord to the fishing line - and pulled the antenna up into place.

Here is a picture of the matchbox in the tree.

I had *just* enough paracord to tie the antenna off to the chain link fence. This is temporary; I need something a little better. But, it's up.

I went inside to listen to it for a bit. I found a guy talking on 20 meters and switched back and forth between my original dipole and the new end-fed antenna. For at least this case, the new antenna produced a stronger signal with less noise.  I wonder what it will be like when I *transmit* with it!

In the meantime, here is a quick and dirty and out-of-focus video showing the old and new antennas with that signal. If you listen closely, you can hear less noise with the new antenna; you can also see the signal strength jump from 6-7 to 8-9 on the new antenna.

Oh - and yesterday's stuck arrow was waiting for me, leaning up against the fence by the driveway.

But the spark plug socket and paracord are still up there.

Hopefully in the next day or two I will get the opportunity to play with transmitting.  I expect that it might tune differently than my dipole.

73, K9MJA