Moxon Rules

I finally caught an opening on 6 - two days running. Worked 8 stations in about 30 minutes on each day, mostly out in Delta Mike land. (See the phphamlog for details.)

The Moxon performed extremely well and I am very pleased with the way it has turned out.

I will be back for more during the coming band openings.

Maybe I should start working on one for 10?

My 6 Meter Moxon Antenna Project Part 4

Ever have the feeling you're sitting in your kitchen wearing a tuxedo?

Or, in outher words, all dressed up and nowhere to go?

Not seeing any openings on 6. But I have an antenna if they ever show up.

My 6 Meter Moxon Antenna Project Part 3

The Moxon is finished!

That's not the best picture, the sun was behind the antenna and the iPhone camera doesn't do its best under those conditions.

Right after this was taken, I hooked up the coax and measured the SWR of the antenna. It suffers from Cebik's Curse, like many Moxons I have read about, and is resonant 1 MHz below the design frequency. I knew I should have designed high but in the end went with the on-frequency measurements and it came in low.

But the SWR on 50.125 is 1.2:1 which will keep me happy for the near term, and it will go to 50.350 before it gets above 1.5:1 so I will leave it for now.

I gave a call on 50.125 and immediately was answered by Dan, WB5TKA, who was about 1.5 miles away. My first DX on the Moxon! Well, anyway the antenna works, and I was able to drop his signal from 20 over to S5 by rotating the beam away from him, so the directionality is working as advertised.

Another CQ on 50.125 brought a call from WA5OLT, Will in Arlington, about 10 miles away. This antenna just gets better and better! Actually I am grateful that Dan and Will were monitoring 6 meters so I could get verification that the antenna is working.

Now to wait for the Es season to get started. Look for me on 6.

To bring the construction details up to date: the boom is 3/4-inch schedule 40 PVC pipe with a 1/2-inch reducing tee in the center. I bought a center tee adapter from Buddipole and a Longarm 23' extension pole from Home Depot as a mast. The beam is attached to the boom with a piece of Lexan I found at Home Depot, cut to 5x4 inches and fixed with 3/4" stainless steel 8896T93 U-bolts from McMaster-Carr. When I'm not using the beam, I hang it from hooks in the ceiling of the garage. All the aluminum tubes are attached to the 3/8 fiberglass or aluminum stock using 3/4-inch stainless steel machine screws.

I am very pleased with the outcome of this project. This is the first all-homebrew project I have done in many years, as I have a tendency to buy parts for projects which I will then find on the shelf years later and wonder what I had planned to build with them. So carrying this to completion was a milestone for me. Perhaps it has something to do with being retired, I have time to follow through on projects.

My 6 meter Moxon project, part 2

I am progressing with the antenna. I have some stainless U-bolts on the way from McMaster-Carr while I try to design a boom and mast arrangement.

Looking Back

A while back I put in a "find and notify" on Amazon for a callbook, and lo, they found it, and I quickly bought it:

Why did I want this copy? Because on page 247 you can find this:

Those were the days. Calling CQ on the one and only 80 meter frequency I had a crystal for and tuning up and down looking for a reply.

My 6 meter Moxon project

Some time back, I decided I wanted to build a Moxon beam for 6 meters. I calculated all the hardware and tubing I would need and placed an order with McMaster-Carr for the stainless screws and some fiberglass rod.

Then I shelved the project for four years.

This is unfortunately typical for me. I have a lot of boxes with project parts that have been in the garage for years, never to be realized.

But for some reason (maybe retirement has something to do with it) I decided to follow through on the Moxon. A trip to Texas Towers got me the 1/2-inch aluminum tubing I needed, and several days searching through the garage turned up the stainless hardware and the fiberglass rod (which I had decided was lost for good, but turned up after all).

Home Depot provided 25 pounds of play sand for the tube bending, and Ace Hardware had corks and a funnel. Naturally the funnel was too big to fit in the 1/2-inch tubing, but I was able to use some 3/8" tube to align the funnel with the tube:

Then I taped the funnel to the tube. The other end has a cork held with tape also to close it up:

After filling the tube with sand (I tapped the corked end on the floor to get the sand compacted inside the tube), I sealed that end with a cork and started the bending.

Here is my first bend:

Filling with sand produces beautiful smooth bends.

I have all four tubes bent and ready to cut. I am following the W4RNL article for my building strategy so the next step is to layout the rectangle on the garage floor and set up for cutting. Then I need a boom and to assemble all the parts.

I will post more as I progress. I just hope it's not four years from now.

Contests! Contests!

I did a little CW in the Oklahoma QSO party this morning (I need OK confirmed in LOTW). Stayed on 40 meters but a winter storm is moving in and the truck is getting too cold to stay in.

I also operated in the ARRL DX phone contest, for the first time, and managed to work 30 countries. That was a lot of fun.

This entry is being posted using my iPhone, to try out posting away from the PC.

Back Again

I'm back. Did you miss me?

I was busy this weekend with the ARRL DX Phone contest, which was a lot of fun. I worked 50 stations in 30 countries, many of which were new ones for me. Some of the ops have already uploaded to LOTW giving me confirmations for their countries.

It was a rainy weekend here so I backed the Titan out of the garage just enough for the antenna to be in the clear, so I could get in and out without being in the rain. That arrangement worked out pretty well for me.

If anyone is interested in the stations I worked in the contest, I have entered all of them in the phpHamlog (link on the left).

I am retired from my job of the last 34 years so I expect to become more active on the bands now. Hope to talk to you soon.