Although HF conditions in my opinion have not been too good lately, I have now had a little time to evaluate the SRC mobile whip.
It certainly appears to be a robust enough antenna physically and it looks well made. Using my LDG auto ATU I can now tune all bands from 80 to 10 metres. The antenna seems quite lively on receive, within the first few days of using it and under poor conditions I worked a DL station on 20 metres, he was calling CQ and came back to me straight away. I can monitor a local 80 metre AM net on my morning drive to work, although I would think that 80 metres is likely to be the worst band for this antenna.
Because the "Tune" function on my Icom 706 MK1 does not operate on 6metres I am unable to get the LDG atu to work on that band. I have found however that by tuning the whip up on 80 metres and then switching to 6 I get an acceptable SWR and indeed the antenna appears to work reasonably well on 6.
All in All I am pleased with the SRC. It is very convenient having all the HF bands available without swapping whips and the performance does not seem to be noticeably different from the mono band whips I had been using.
Showing posts with label src 8010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label src 8010. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Thursday, 26 May 2011
HF Mobile
A couple of weeks back I ordered a multiband HF SRC 8010 mobile whip from Snowdonia Radio Company. It took a while to arrive and a follow up email to the company wasn't replied to but luckily today the antenna arrived. The antenna with the aid of an auto ATU will, according to specifications tune from 80 metres up to 6.
I have tested it briefly on the car today, sure enough it did tune from 80 up to 10 metres and in fact it sounded very lively particularly on the higher bands. On 6 metres my auto ATU doesn't want to speak to my Icom 706 MK1 but I was able to get what appears an acceptable match on that band (by tuning the whip on another band and switching to 6) and was rewarded by hearing a number of stations on 6m SSB as well as accessing a semi-local 6 metre repeater on FM.
The antenna looks to be well constructed. As I understand it the base contains a small balun which help in the matching of the whip. It will certainly be nice to have more choice of HF bands when I am mobile. Up to now I had whips for 40,20 and 10 and had to decide before setting off which band I would operate each day.
I will report back when I have had more time to assess this antenna but first impressions are good.
Below is the base of the antenna
I have tested it briefly on the car today, sure enough it did tune from 80 up to 10 metres and in fact it sounded very lively particularly on the higher bands. On 6 metres my auto ATU doesn't want to speak to my Icom 706 MK1 but I was able to get what appears an acceptable match on that band (by tuning the whip on another band and switching to 6) and was rewarded by hearing a number of stations on 6m SSB as well as accessing a semi-local 6 metre repeater on FM.
The antenna looks to be well constructed. As I understand it the base contains a small balun which help in the matching of the whip. It will certainly be nice to have more choice of HF bands when I am mobile. Up to now I had whips for 40,20 and 10 and had to decide before setting off which band I would operate each day.
I will report back when I have had more time to assess this antenna but first impressions are good.
Below is the base of the antenna
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