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Ok, guys - my transceiver and SWR meter showed up today. Last night I took the 40 meter dipole I made yesterday afternoon and hung it up (mid point about 24' high, 120 degree angle) and surfed around on 40m. Heard quite a lot - much better than with a random wire. So, now I'm all set to tune that antenna up and see if I can get a signal out.
I'll make some pictures and post them later today or tomorrow. Got work and family to juggle at the moment.
Just took delivery of a number of fun things. Got a 50' length of RG-58U coax, a small 1:1 balun, a spool of wire suitable for antenna work, some fishing lines (for guying, going on the ends of antennas, and so on) and some assorted bits of related hardware. This is is a lot of what I need to make that 40 meter band dipole I'm going to start out with. No spider pole yet, but I do have a 24' light bulb changer I can use in the meantime. So hopefully tonight I'll cruise the 40 meter band on my Kenwood R5000 with a properly put together resonant dipole!
I'm still expecting some insulators and a couple of other things, but I think I can improvise around those things until they show up.
As I mentioned on the ham home page, I've paid some attention to amateur radio and shortwave listening throughout most of my life, starting in the 1970's. Things have changed - a lot. In fact, it's really pretty amazing how much they've changed. The evolution of electronics tech has completely revolutionized the field, just as it has in so many other areas. Back then radios were almost completely analog contraptions.
In college I ran across the book pictured on the left. Not a digital bit in sight.. All about tank circuits, filters, transistor amplifiers, oscillators, and so on. I still have my copy on my The real deal. At home I listened to the BBC on 5975 kHz, Voice of America, Radio Moscow, and many others. The SWL bands were alive with traffic. It seemed easy to find signals of almost every imaginable type. I had a lot of fun.In more recent years, I've noticed that I hear far less activity on the bands. It's possible that I'm just being misled - maybe modern tech produces a lot more interference, and I haven't really "done a good listen." This is something I'll have to sort through soon. I still have the Kenwood R5000 receiver I bought way back then, and it works fine. But it was made at a much earlier time; maybe it just wasn't designed to handle types of interference that have come along more recently...