Ham Radio Forum

The temporary sloping HF delta loop at the Salt Lake City receiving site has been removed to allow installation of a higher loop of different design that has more operating modes. During the transition to the new antenna the receiver is temporarily using a near-vertical, un-tuned, random length of wire approximately 100-feet in length that is end-fed via 170 feet of buried 75-ohm RG6U quad-shielded coax. There are large impedance mismatches on all Amateur Bands, but signals on the lower bands are usually sufficiently strong that the primary practical effect is lower S-Meter readings.

The antenna is on the side of a mountain hundreds of feet above the valley floor below. Lighting often strikes nearby. Years ago it struck and severely damaged the tree that is supporting this antenna. Furthermore, this is a season when lightning storms are common. Compounding this situation, I will be away on trip the next several days. Because of these circumstances, I have installed a relay at the antenna feed-point that will automatically disconnect the coax feed-line and ground the antenna for a period of thirty minutes whenever lightning-induced voltage spikes exceed a preset threshold. If the receiver seems to be dead, that may have happened or X-Ray energy from the sun may have caused another HF radio blackout.

-Bob