Back in 2022 (last year) some wild weather experienced at my home resulted in the destruction of my dual-use 27 MHz CB and 10 meter band vertical antenna. My good friend and amateur radio colleague Cameron VK3SWL (@VictorianDxer on YouTube) had a SIRIO New Tornado laying around and graciously posted it up to Darwin for me.
Using my MINI1300 analyzer and a satellite dish tripod, I remove two of the ground-plane radials and lower the antenna down to lengthen the telescopic top section incrementally until I reach my target resonant frequency 28.3 MHz. This is roughly in the middle of 27 MHz CB channel 1 and the top-end of the 10 meter ham band. The final SWR reading was 1.3, good enough for me!
Most off-the-shelf antennas are sold with a 'tuning chart' which lists various lengths and resonant frequencies, but I prefer to do it the old school way with an antenna analyzer, or a radio and an SWR meter! Eventually, this antenna will be getting permanently mounted to a wall-mounted 5.5 meter tall mast attached to my garden shed.
Of course, no antenna project ever goes smoothly! The patch cable I was using between the analyzer and the antenna appeared to have a fault, giving me infinite SWR readings. So you will see me disappear while I try to dig up another patch cable!
At the end of the video, I run a short coaxial patch cable to my Airspy HF+ Discovery software defined radio and unroll a USB extension cable from my PC indoors out to the antenna/SDR. Then it was testing time! The antenna works extremely well, far better than my previous 27/28 MHz vertical!
All music played in this video was produced by my brother, Pengü on Soundcloud: [ Ссылка ]
Thanks for watching!
