160 meter

I received my 160 meter CW signal on websdr twente.The signal was not strong S7. Maybe the new antenna layout helped. The test was performed in the middle of the night using 80 Watts. It must have been skywave propagation as the distance is over 120 km.
Now I hope to make some contacts on 160 meter.

Transmitter using tuner

At a flea market I bought an old PLL tuner. I wanted to know if the synthesizer could be used for hamradio. It had to be an old one as the new ones use a everything on on chip approach. I suppose the synthesizer is unreachable in the new tuners.

Plan was to use the synthesizer for the FM band. Mix this signal with a signal out of a VXO at 98.7 MHz. then filter it using a lowpass filter at 20 MHz. This would make a 0-20 Mhz signal generator. I listened to the signal of the synthesizer in cw mode to check the quality. Unfortunately It does not sound like a T9 signal.

I also listened to the signals out of the medium wave synthesizer. This signal sounds T9. The synthesizer can generate a signal in the 160 Meter band. Stepzize is 9Khz. I could make a AM transmitter just for fun.

fixed antenna

One of my trees had grown into the wire dipole antenna. It had a big effect on the antenna especially during rainfall. So I cut some of the branches. Unfortunately one of the support wires broke. It turned out that the weather had weakened it. I could pull it apart by hand easily.

So I climbed upon the roof to connect the wire antenna to the chimney. I suppose the antenna works beter now. Previously 4 meter of the wire ran parallel to the metal VHF/UHF antenna pole. That is not ideal. I did not make a qso using the new setup. So I don't know how it performs. I did found out that the antenna tuner needs different settings.

Coax balun 1:4 for open line fed dipole

My antenna tuner is a asymetrical tuner. I want to use it for my dipole that is fed using open line. So I need a balun. I made this one PA0FRI coax balun

Instead of 3 meter coax I have use 5. I did this to make it work on 160 meter.
3 meter is recommended for 80 meter and higher.

My antenna is an compromise. It consists of 2x13 meter dipole fed by 14 meter open line. The dipole is folded to fit in my small (15x5 meter)garden . Inside the house the open line is connected to the balun. The balun is connected to tuner by 5 meter RG213coax.


The antenna should work for all HF bands. It does, even on 80 meter. I checked uing the websdr located in twente. Just 3 watts was enough to produce a clear CW signal. Even 1 Watt produces a audible signal. The distance Tilburg Twente is 134 km.

Previously I used a hf choke made of coax instead of the balun. It is hard to compare the choke and the balun. The balun should work better but only time will tell.

I hoped I could produce a usable 160 meter signal using this antenna and the balun.
Unfortunately it is not going to happen. Although the reception on 160 meter has improved dramatically compared to the RF shoke, the signal is hardly readable on the web sdr in Twente. It is not even readable on the websdr in Eindhoven. Not even when 100 Watt is used. Eindhoven is just 40 km away from Tilburg. I can tune the antenna to 1:1 easily.Unfortunately the power is converted into heat inside the tuner. It gets hot.