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Antenna range, that is… The Quad-County ARC held its first-ever antenna shootout preceding the July meeting. Using a low-power transmitter located almost 1/4 mile away, the group of antenna experimenters set up a monitoring position in a large parking lot adjacent to the meeting room on the Penn State DuBois Campus and took signal strength measurements of various 2-meter antennas that they brought for the occasion. The winner was a homebrew contraption made by Lars SM7FYW/KB3WBT.
Larry KB3YJH placed his home-made groundplane atop the test mast and the measured signal strength was good enough to take second place. Lars and Don KB3LES each tested several antennas and found the truth about directivity and gain.
After the meeting Joe W3BC presented a program on computer modeling of antennas. The highlight of the presentation was to input the dimensions of Lars’ blue ribbon winner, and see if it was supposed to work in theory. The answer was surprisingly close to the pattern measured on the test range, with deep side nulls predicted just like those measured on the range, and a fairly large lobe off the back of the antenna, again in accordance with the actual measurements.
It was so much fun, that another shootout is planned for 6:30 August 17th, before the meeting at 7:30. This second shootout will also be for UHF antennas.
Don KB3LES will be bringing his secret weapon, which looks like something from NASA… You’ll have to be there to catch all the fun!!!
