Packtenna in the Wild

Thanks to George at Packtenna for a development kit to try out

I am very pleased with the performance of the the 3 baluns I made and my operations on 20m and above

The approach to get as much wire in the air helps make more contacts because its a 20m dipole at full length of 32 feet not a shorter antenna

I have the shorter antennas and they all serve a purpose but if I can get a dipole up then my antenna is more efficient

I have to make my baluns protected with a full heat shrink but i am very pleased with the performance

The standard T-200 toroid is NOT the best choice it seems and with my focus on 20m and up operation the -63 mix is better

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In this demo its just a silly 20m dipole but the brilliance is in the balun and the pcb board

the excellent and well designed 1:1 balun

My tripod and mast system gets it up quickly and efficiently

CQ DX...

Nite EZe and orange paracord is a blessing

Get orange paracord. The black stuff just means that you will walk into it unless you are trying to be covert

Bingo the match is spot on...just follow the instructions and measure twice and cut once

Ozzipole Antenna Build Out - DIY

The lads down under came up with the Kangaroo version of a Buddipole with a interesting design twist. These guys down under never sleep when it comes to creativity in the world of antennas

Naturally, as an antenna experimenter I just HAD to build this vegamite version

Here is the canuck version and it took a few iterations in the waterfall design methodology to get it right

Its a great antenna and after finding the sweet spot I was able to make some quick contacts into Europe and South America and yeah several K6, N3 and K5s

The antenna is a keeper and sits in the Buddipole, Pac-12 and Packtenna hall of fame

The whip element i used was 48" with radio shack whip

attached to my MSR mast with custom mount

I chose to use a binding post approach for antenna connections in case i decided to toss the antenna. The antenna passed the ve3ips tests

I love hardware stores and the center mount is available in your electrical section

A 8 foot antenna is a joke on 40m so i did not make these winding's with a focus on 20m and up

Nirvana is achieved right out of the box for the 20m qrp cw calling frequency....qrz??

Once I got a baseline swr it took 3 minutes to nail it down and blip out a CQ on the qrp cw channel.

I have pdf versions of the ozzipole antenna available if you wish to build one as the kits have gone qrt...just email me for a copy

I had a good go with this antenna pushing out 20watts on the yaesu 857d making easy contacts on 20m and 10m

I had a super kerchunk into the clubs 6m repeater once I took the pocket tape measure to get the 54" figured out but my antenna analyzer is not 6m equipped

The Yaesu 857D is the standard for operations beyond the 5w qrp. Let's call it MQRP for medium power QRP at 20 watts