Frustrated HF User, Advice Wanted Please
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
I tried HF but I could not get it to work. I was given an old Kenwood TS120S, a 43 feet long end fed wire antenna, and a 9:1 balun. The end fed 43 feet long wire is 450 ohms and the 9:1 balun gives me 50 ohms. I bought an MFJ automatic tuner. One side of the balun is grounded to an outside pipe that is in the ground. My main issues are a lit of noise as in S3-S6 on the VU meter, I can not hear much, and those I do hear do not reply back. Here come the questions. How do I know if my problems are with the 1980 Kenwood or the odd antenna? Would I be better served with an M.fJ G5RV antenna? I am trying to get on HF as inexpensively as I can while using what I have. By the way, this is a 200 watt radio from the factory. Thanks for the advice.
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KD0SFY
So, to be clear you are grounding one side of the balanced side of the balun. Not the shield of the coax or unbalanced side of the balun. In other words, you are trying to use a balun like an unun.
My recommendation, without a terminating resistor, you are probably sending a lot of power to ground. Your best bet, get a purpose built unun. Or, just try a different antenna. Multi-element, multi-band dipoles, sometimes somewhat incorrectly called fan dipoles, are very easy to build. |
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William Bauer
I don’t have an answer to your question, but as a new Ham the biggest area of “mystery” for me is also antennas. I have a new rig (Icom 7300) and this antenna <https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/CHA-EMCOMM-II>, but am experiencing many of the same issues you note - quite a bit of noise, not hearing much, and difficulty having others hear me. I would love to be pointed to some good resources on antennas that are clear and understandable by someone without much background in this area.
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Bill
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Hi Paul;
Couple of questions--What bands are you trying and having no success on? Some bands right now are quite inactive and you may not hear much. Secondly, is your antenna up in the clear, away from other objects and buildings? If not, that could affect your receiving and also transmitting. Lastly, check you AF and RF gain controls to make sure that they are set right. Your AF gain is essencially your volume, and the RF gain should be somewhere around 10:00 or when it starts to measure on your meter. Check your swr when transmitting. If you are using voice the meter will bounce around with your voice. Just keying the mic with not show as output on your meter. Give those things a shot and see what happens. You should be able to hear voice on 80 and 40 meters at night, and on 20 meters in the day. Dale K8TS |
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
Alright lets see here. A ham installed the antenna for me. Long story short....it was the ham that gave me my exam. I have since moved. He drove to my house on the way to a business trip. He provided the antenna, balun, coax....all from years of stuff laying around. The system is setup like this:
Kenwood TS120, coax to mfj auto tuner, coax from auto tuner to the port of the bottom of what I am calling a balun. There are two metal posts on the balun with wingnuts. On one side there is a metal wire (animal electric fence wire) going from one pist of the balun down to an outside water pipe in the ground. On the other wingnut of the balun is the end of the 43 feet long wire antenna. At the end of the antenna is an insulator. At the other end of the insulator is antenna rope which runs to a flag pole. The antenna is about 30 feet in the air. Not sure if the pics help but they are what I could find. |
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Richard KE0YGN
I'm just throwing this out there, but the very first thing I would do is to get rid of the fence wire to the waterpipe, get a ground rod and some #10 copper wire, and get a decent ground on the antenna...you need a low impedence to ground for things to work correctly
-- 73s..Richard KE0YGN |
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KD0SFY
Thanks. A close up of the "balun" showing make or models would help determine if this is a balun or an unun. If it is an unun, one end should go to the wire antenna, the other would normally go to a counterpoise. |
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KD0SFY
William Bauer, I would recommend starting with some of the ARRL books on antennas. One of the most basic antennas to start with is a classic dipole. This is the basis of many other antennas and will give the fundamentals.
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
There are no markings on the balun. I remember the ham telling me that the balun and antenna were made by a long ago defunct company out of Lynchburg, VA. Some long gone electronics company. I forget what the antenna was called. The coating on the wire is blue and the wire is 43 feet long. This is not a store bought antenna and it is decades old. I will try and contact the ham to get more info on it. I do not have any sort of swr/watt meter. Just the meter built into the ts120s. The radio nor my autotuner have the ability to connect a bare wire antenna to it....only the 50 ohm coax 239.
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William Bauer
I can’t really set up a dipole antenna due to HOA regulations. They are the main reason I purchased the CHAMELEON ANTENNA Portable HF Antennas EMCOMM-II < https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/CHA-EMCOMM-II>.
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Richard AG5M <ag5m@...>
I'll add my 2-cents worth. First, you need to be sure you can hear anything. Is the receiver working? Bypass the balun and plug that antenna wire (or some other random length of wire) directly into the TS-120S. Nothing else needed. No grounds, nothing. DON'T TRANSMIT! Just listen for awhile, 80m to 20m, different times of the day. Do you hear signals, Yes? No? And it is not uncommon to have noise levels of S3 or higher depending on where you live. If you hear signals at least you know the receiver is working. Next, you DO need to know (1) if your transmitter is putting out any power at all (BTW, that is NOT a 200 watt rig, 100 watts tops). And (2) you do need a dummy load and an SWR meter to actually know what, or if, the radio is putting out any power into a dummy load. As was stated by another Ham, every shack needs to have one. You should see around 70 to 90 watts output into a dummy load depending on the band. Then, assuming you have been hearing signals with just the wire, and have confirmed the radio is putting out power into the dummy load, connect that antenna system you have back up. Can you still receive signals as you did when the wire was connected directly to the back of the radio? If so, that's good. Then, with SWR meter in line, put some power to it (low power, 20 watts or so) and check SWR. It should be 2:1 or less. Is it? After all that report back your findings. Others might have some other suggestions. We're all here to help. 73, Richard AG5M On Thursday, January 30, 2020, 7:23:59 PM PST, Paul <lovenhim@...> wrote: There are no markings on the balun. I remember the ham telling me that the balun and antenna were made by a long ago defunct company out of Lynchburg, VA. Some long gone electronics company. I forget what the antenna was called. The coating on the wire is blue and the wire is 43 feet long. This is not a store bought antenna and it is decades old. I will try and contact the ham to get more info on it. I do not have any sort of swr/watt meter. Just the meter built into the ts120s. The radio nor my autotuner have the ability to connect a bare wire antenna to it....only the 50 ohm coax 239. |
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I think the best advice I can give you to address this problem, and also to help you avoid getting frustrated with the hobby, is to suggest that you find a local ham who can help you "learn the ropes". An experienced ham can help you understand how to check out your transceiver, your transmission line, and your antenna setup. It will be the best investment you will ever make.
Cheers, Joe, N2QOJ |
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Bernd - KB7AK
If I may add, I don’t hear a lot of activities on the band either, and I would call myself lucky to have less than S3 noise levels. Others recommended to listen to 20m or 40, or 80m in the evening. You should be able to pick up FT8 signals, because you find them all over the place geographically. The frequencies are 14.074, 7.074, and 3.573 respectively. They comes in pulses of about 13 seconds long and start at 00, 15, 30, and 45 seconds of the minute.
I was in a very similar situation almost 3 years ago, my first antenna was an MFJ window antenna, a thing they build for apartment. Complete piece of crap. Art one I ended up with a simple Dipole (as already suggested, hung it on a hook outside a window underneath the eaves and made it into an inverted Vee. And my faith in Ham Radio got reinstated. I skipped the “complicated stuff with baluns, ununs, grounding, ladder lines etc., because once you start using those components, you get 5 different answers if you ask different people. Start with something simple that hopefully works, and then you can establish your own baseline, and then you can improve.
Today, I have a G5RV, on a mast, not super high (HOA restricted) and I have reached 144 DXCC entities and got to 50 states on 6 bands in digital, CW and RTTY. SSB is the most frustrating and difficult one during sunspot minimum, so that will come later.
Good luck and don’t give up.
73, Bernd – KB7AK
From: ARRL-New-Hams@... <ARRL-New-Hams@...> On Behalf Of Richard AG5M via Groups.Arrl.Org
I'll add my 2-cents worth. First, you need to be sure you can hear anything. Is the receiver working? On Thursday, January 30, 2020, 7:23:59 PM PST, Paul <lovenhim@...> wrote:
There are no markings on the balun. I remember the ham telling me that the balun and antenna were made by a long ago defunct company out of Lynchburg, VA. Some long gone electronics company. I forget what the antenna was called. The coating on the wire is blue and the wire is 43 feet long. This is not a store bought antenna and it is decades old. I will try and contact the ham to get more info on it. I do not have any sort of swr/watt meter. Just the meter built into the ts120s. The radio nor my autotuner have the ability to connect a bare wire antenna to it....only the 50 ohm coax 239. |
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Knowing your Call sign might help us help you But since you do not post your call sign I have no idea |
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
Alright. Here are some pictures for you. I took the wire off the device I am calling a balun and put bare wire into the center hole of the Kenwood TS120s. On any band nothing but noise and static. I could here very faint talking now and then, faint cw now and then, and some island sounding music. All very faint and a lot of just static.
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
I keep forgetting my call sign, goofy me.
KN4CHK Carrsville, VA |
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Paul; I can’t tell very well, but is the antenna electrically connected to the balun?…..my eyes are not what they used to be. Looks like the antenna wire is just looped around the eyelet. If it is not electrically connected, that may be your problem. Every thing else looks good. Dale K8TS
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Paul
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2020 11:26 AM To: ARRL-New-Hams@... Subject: Re: [New-Hams] Frustrated HF User, Advice Wanted Please
I keep forgetting my call sign, goofy me.
KN4CHK Carrsville, VA
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
Yes, it was connected to the balun. By the time I thought to take puctures I had already taken the wire off of the wingnut.
KN4CHK |
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Paul <lovenhim@...>
From a reply above I tried the suggested frequencies. I could here a very faint wobbly sounding tone burst but the noise was much louder than the tone. This is a great learning experience. There is a local club around me but they are not very active. They host one 2 meter net a week. I have asked for help in the local 2 meter net but nothing has come of it. I will keep trying and not give up. Thank you for the help. Being legally blind and living on a fixed income can make this more difficult. However, I still have my working 2 meter radio.
KN4CHK |
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Richard AG5M <ag5m@...>
From those pictures, I see lots of rust, corrosion. That could be an issue. You said you can receive signals, if not strong. That says the receiver is working. As others have suggested, seek out local Hams. A search on the ARRL website show two other hams in your town, and 18 Hams in Franklin, perhaps they can be of assistance. Probably something simple. Looks like you have lots of property out there, you could hide a lot of antennas in those trees. Envy... 73, Richard AG5M On Friday, January 31, 2020, 8:42:27 AM PST, Paul <lovenhim@...> wrote: Yes, it was connected to the balun. By the time I thought to take puctures I had already taken the wire off of the wingnut. KN4CHK |
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