[600MRG] Q meters

[Edward R Cole]

Rudy,

Good idea if you live in the lower-48 with several flea markets a 
month to chose from.  We only have three per year up here and they 
are now over for the year.  One is local (we held it two weeks ago) 
there were no Q-meters at it.  I did score a CE-5 Cushman service 
monitor which is fully functional for $50.

The other flea markets are 230-mile away (5-hour drive) or 450-mile 
drive (9-hours) and also unlikely to have this stuff.  But you can 
buy all the FT-101E's you might like ;-)

Otherwise its a four hour drive to the airport, and 3-1/2 hour $900 
flight to Seattle and car rental and hotel charges and eating in 
restaurants to get to any of your flea markets...call it $1500 
min.  Then hope you don't pay excessive baggage fees getting one back.

But maybe I could find one on e-bay and only pay $250 shipping to get 
it up here.

Ah did you mean to write HP432A as that is a mw power meter and I 
already have one.

My base coil is built so how is one supposed to improve it?  I used 
my MFJ analyzer to resonate the antenna and then tapped the bottom to 
get a match to 50-ohm coax.

Can't I deduce Q from measuring antenna bandwidth?  Its about 5-7 Hz.

73, Ed

At 02:44 PM 9/27/2015, Rudy Severns wrote:
>Old Boonton/HP Q-meters (160A or 260A) should go for $50-$100 at flea
>markets.  The newer but well used HP4342A Q-meters should only be $200 or
>so.  EBay is of course the high priced place to look but I saw few under
>$100 in a quick check.  Keep your eyes open and shop around!  Once you have
>one of these in hand you can really work on improving your coil Q's and also
>having the correct numbers for analysis.
>
>
>
>In most amateur antennas efficiency will be dominated by loading inductor
>loss.  Knowing and improving the Q is the key to efficiency once you have
>the vertical as high possible with as much top-loading as possible.   Of
>course that's at 630m, at 2200m it will be overwhelming the case.
>
>
>
>73, Rudy N6LF
>
>_______________________________________________
>600MRG mailing list
>600MRG at w7ekb.com
>http://w7ekb.com/mailman/listinfo/600mrg_w7ekb.com

73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
     "Kits made by KL7UW"
Dubus Mag business:
     dubususa at gmail.com