Harvard Wireless Club Bulletin April 28, 1999

I just wanted to let you know that the 2nd tower is now finished and the antennas look great! Matt and Andy finished up the assembly, raising and testing by 2:00PM today. This installation is definitely first-rate and certainly is a vast improvement over the old mast and tribander. But what a lousy day to test new antennas! HF was noisy and the only activity at all was on 20. VHF was out of the question although we had good copy on all the cordless telephones on 49MHZ :-) I worked a handful of CW and SSB contacts on 20 and, despite conditions, reports were all S7 or better. Several items to note:

1. The X-7 has much better front-to-back gain than does the log periodic. Beam headings are much easier to fix with this antenna. Which is really the better HF performer? Time will tell.

2. The X-7 is switched on the second position which we'll work SSB from this weekend. The antenna is clearly marked. Switching between the R-7 and the X-7 will easily show you how much gain we have picked up at this position.

3. The X-7 SWR is virtually flat across the wide expanse of 10 meters. 15 shows 1.8:1 at the CW edge and improves moving up in frequency. 20 is eerily flat across most of the band. Of course with the external auto tuner, SWR is never an issue. On the A-50-5, the SWR is also very low from 50 - 53 MHZ. The 6 meter beam is cut to perform best lower on 6 where most of the activity is.

4. The IC-736 is programed to detect the A-50-5 on antenna input #2, so there is no antenna switching needed to go from HF to VHF on this rig.

5. The TailTwister rotor will not spin beyond 360 degrees so, unless the brake gives out, there's no chance of wrapping the coax. The important thing to keep in mind is that the brake release needs to be depressed before turning the rotor and must be held in for a couple seconds after you stop turning the rotor. And avoid fast CW to CCW rotations -- give the rotor a rest before turning in the opposite direction. With those points in mind, this setup should give us no problems.

A Gazette photographer stopped by and caught Matt and Andy raising the X-7. A little more positive PR for the HWC can't hurt.