Our ham radio club (www.smarc.org, WØEBE) is hosting a Special Event Station, KØS, the Kurt N. Sterba Strange Antenna Challenge, May 10-11, 2003 in Springfield, Missouri. We will set up a variety of "strange" antennas in front of the Evangel University Library. Some of our antennas will be hanging from the trees along Glenstone Avenue - one of our town's major streets. Imagine the expressions on the passer-bys! This should be great fun! Please give us a call, and get your QSL certificate.
If you're in the area, swing by and join in the fun! Bring along that big old metal desk on the way to the dump and let's see if we can tune it up! We will be having a good time and invite anyone, ham and non-ham alike, to stop by and join us.
Our local newspaper, the News-Leader, has requested a second copy of the news release. Unless there is late breaking news it seems they will cover this event. I'm hopeful a reporter may wish to experience operating a ham radio.
Local hams that wish to run a Special Event Station under the auspices of wØebe should contact Erik, nØew, and download the log file (an Excel spreadsheet):
Everyone attempting to contact us may of course use anything they choose as their antenna. We will provide and request honest RST reports.
For those who send us a SASE we will QSL with a certificate that includes an image of the strange antenna with which we worked your station. You may QSL to either of the two addresses below. In either event I will be the one responding, so the first address will be a little faster.
We only have two "antenna rules" we will observe during this event. In addition, those of us running an event station must fully complete the log for each contact, and send Erik, nØew, an image of each strange antenna used.
In the image on the top-right you see my painting easel dipole. I worked Alaska through Mexico with this antenna at 100 watts. Below and on the left you see the tape measure dipole. It easily worked Europe, also at 100 watts, and most notably Kygyzstan, which is along China's western border. These "antennas" offer just a taste of the possibilities. If it is metal, if you can tune it, and if you can load enough power into it to radiate, you can make contacts.
Use your imagination and most importantly, have fun!
What prompted this endeavor?
Reading Kurt N. Sterba's three books "Aerials" (I, II, and III) gave me the idea. Over the years he has entered a variety of contest with such things as umbrellas and ladders as antennas, and has scored rather well to boot! This is something that sounded like fun, and I thought it may be interesting enough to grab the attention of the general public, and perhaps the media (the local newspaper has expressed interest).
Kurt's books are great reading and filled with good information. He is somewhat rough around the edges, yet he dispells many misconceptions, sadly many of which are propagated by antenna manufacturers, authors, and publishers who should know better. Kurt writes a monthly article in "World Radio" which has become one of my favorite reads each month!
Kurt's books can be ordered from "World Radio" if you're interested (www.wr6wr.com). I would also recommend adding ("Reflections II" by Walter Maxwell, w2du) to your library. It's a great book if you wish to understand what happens to the RF energy leaving your rig heading to your antenna, or if you wish to build antenna tuners.
This special event is also good practice for those of us who practice emergency prepardness. By experimenting with these odd-ball antennas one should be much better prepared to go into a disaster area and rig up a make-shift antenna and be reasonably certain it will work well enough to communicate. It might even, just plain, work well!
To prepare for this special event, our April 2003 club meeting discussed antenna tuners and then we "flew" a dog kennel out back!
We placed a 3x8 foot porch door screen (metal of course, as was the dog kennel) on the ground. We then set the dog kennel on top of this, separating the screen and kennel by several scrap pieces of 2x4" lumber. This both held the screen upon the ground and insulated the screen groundplane from the radiating element (dog kennel). The dog kennel measures roughly 3x8x2 feet and we had it orientated with the long axis running East-West.
Coax was run from an Icom 706, to a MFJ-969 antenna tuner, to an Altoid's box that has a SO-239 and binding posts mounted in it. About 2 or 3 feet of coax was wrapped around a plastic Folger's Instant Coffee jar (12 oz. unleaded ;-) to keep stray energy from flowing down the outside of the coax shielding (see "Reflections II"). Then two short pieces of wire were run from the binding posts to the kennel and screen. A plastic "dog bone" insulator (how appropriate!) was placed against the material to which the free end of the wire was to be afixed. Using a hose clamp the wire was pressure fit against the dog bone and screen / kennel. (Using a nut driver makes this faster/easier.)
Did it work?!
(photos by w0tls)
We only operated for a short period of time. Just after 8 PM (central) on the 3rd Monday of April, I sat at our "insta-shack" (table by the back door running off battery power) calling "CQ CQ CQ this is n0ew in Springfield, Missouri, flying a dog kennel antenna at our club meeting, not because we have to but because we want to, running barefoot at 100 watts," repeating this several times, "and listening"....
After calling two or three times, with 25 or so fellow members huddled behind me, some watching with doubtful expressions, and most looking cautiously amused, at 8:05 we all hear clear as day, Kevin, ka2nue, call back to us and giving us a 5x2, to 5x3, RS report, although our signal strength increased a little by the end of the contact due to propagation changes. My first questions were, where was he located and what antenna was he using? (An 8 element beam at 200 feet could easily mean our signal was extremely marginal and his antenna was making up our deficit.)
Kevin's reply had everyone on their toes, we all wanted to know where this signal was originated... "I'm about 25 miles outside" (you can hear a pin fall in the room) "New York City." Loud cries of excitement and congrats are surely hear by Kevin as I continue speaking with him and describing our antenna a couple times. Kevin was running a Carolina Windom up about 65 feet (35 feet at the ends).
After wishing us luck with the upcoming special event, Kevin turned us lose to troll for another contact, which we made almost immediately. This time we spoke with Ed, n3eya, in Maryland. His antenna was a Cushcraft A4 up about 55 feet, and he was also running 100 watts. Both stations heard one another 5x7, 5x8. However, a steady clicking interference heard by both stations ended the contact around 8:40 PM. There was time enough for one of our youngest club members to enjoy operating under extra class privilages as he spoke to Ed for several minutes. (Maybe he'll wish to upgrade! Another good reason to run stations such as these, similar to the Get On The Air stations during Field Day.)
This ended our little experiment. I hope this excites you at least a little bit and please listen for us May 10th, 2003, if you are reading this before the event date. If you are reading this after the event has entered the pages of history, I hope it spurs your interest and you find it interesting. This is fun! If you have not done so already, I suggest you try some "Strange Antennas" of your own! You may even wish to invite your local news stations/papers to join the fun.
If you would like to see the test antennas I used in the Dec. 2002 ARRL 10-Meter Contest, follow the link below. I was able to work 5 continents in the short period of time I played around that weekend. It was great fun, and interesting. I recommend everyone try this!