SM6EHY H I S T O R Y

It all started early in about 1969 / 1970. Listening to foreign BC-stations on Mediumwave and the activity on the very active 27 MHz-band. (The solarcycle was at it's peak then !). Some few days in a row the band was all but QRM (Interference from other stations) during the light hours. No locals came through. Every now and then one could hear what kind of setup the stations were using; 3 watts and an omnidirectional ground plane antenna... They were often as strong as locals only a few kilometers away. I wondered how it would be like to be on an authorized band, and how long a QRPp (transmitter power less than one watt)-station could be heard. It came clear thatsome help had to be searched for in order to obtain an AMATEUR RADIO license. I joined the FRO (The Voluntary Radio Organisation) which had a CW-course that should result in a speed of 8 wpm or higher. After some few weeks (38 lesson-hours) I gained the speed. I had a music-minded ear.

The 1st CW-contact was done with a strait key and took some 45 minutes to accomplish, just for the normal 4 informations (signalreport, name & location and station). I believe the other station was as nervious as I was... The years went through, and after getting the local activity challenge prize 3 years in a row, mainly activating 80, 40 and 15 meters CW, I started to search for something else.

In Nov.-1976 I started chasing DX on CW 80m. After some 60 or so easily worked DXCC I started to wonder why so many other stations could work rare ones that I could not hear. I started to believe it had to be my antenna, which at the time was a bent dipole at some 14 m AGL.
I had a beautiful tall redwood tree just nearby (It could raise my antenna up to some 27 m !). I started to put up my first VERTICAL groundplane antenna with some 8  1/4-wave radials at ground level.
I was eagor to find out how it would do. After working some 20 or so DXCC more, that little extra was evidently needed. More radials, 32 and up to 60 was layed on the ground. The antenna seemed to work better and better, but not that good. I raised up the feedpoint to 3 m AGL, in order for all radials to slope down to the ground within som 10m diameter. Still better results, but not good enough. I tried to think of something else. Could I do any improvements to the existing groundplane ?

In March 1977 the station of YU3TYX was the only one using some sort of PHASED VERTICALS on CW 80 meters. I could listen to his contacts, but once in a while I could not hear his counterpart.
I decided to put up an additional groundplane. I had another redwood tree at a distance of some 25 m from the previous one, so a 1/4-wave spacing with some 20 m could be sqeezed in. After climbing my "antenna-redwoods" I placed a supporting rope at the extreme top, in order to along this place the other vertical 20 m apart from the first one. The spacing-line was in direction WNW and ESE, just ideal for producing good signals in the W- and VK/ZL-lands.

Using a 1/4-wave phasing (times the velocityfactor of the phasing line) I achieved an ENDFIRE phased vertical array. A directional pattern can be viewed here. Two equally long feeders were brought into the shack, with a 1/4-wave line coild up inside. By means of a simple junkbox relay I could switch in either direction. Each vertical was carefully tuned the the exact resonant frequency. As can be seen from the pattern the main advantage of this 2 directions array is that you cover all the horizon in just these two directions.
An INFINITE front to back ratio ( at 0° elevation !) can be achived.
More nighthours were spent, and the DXCC-totals went up another 40 or 50, in just 2 months, from March to May. The most amazing thing about the phased verticals was on receive, the noise was reduced by a magnitude. Some local hams on a visit, asked me : 'Is the antenna connected ?', when it obviously was ! So dramatic was the difference.
The next modification was to make the elements a little bit longer, and connect a variable capacitor in series with them. Just in order to raise the feed impedance and to concerntrate the radiation lobe at the horizon. This resulted in a more narrowbanded behaviour, but the efficiency was improved.

The array did not behave good enough towards USA (in direction of some 300°). I just for the fun installed full 80 m long radials in the direction sector 300 - 330 °. I then made some comparisons, that night. The W6-stations had an improved signal in comparison with the W1-2-3 by some 6 dB ! What a breakthrough ! By just adding the length I have achieved an honest 6 dB improvement on the really long haul.
For a station located at a latitude of 57.7° N this had also an added bonus.
All signals, from around 1.9 to 10 MHz, that passes through an area with active AURORA, this area has the effect of beeing a variable attenuator. All signals from Scandinavia to USA (via short path) have to travel through it. The Aurora "blotting-paper" seems to be active at a rather high altitude though. If the radiowave has a very good efficiency at the really low take off angles, it is possible for it to sneak under the aurora UNATTENUATED.
The experience tells me that this is a VERY common occurance. DO NOT rely solely on the radiation effieciency when You select Your LowFrequency antenna (!), which seems to be the only parameter mentioned in the antenna handbooks. Consider FIRST the efficiency at low take off angles, and THEN the radiation efficiency !

In late 1978 I started to build up a system that involved 2 more verticals, the so called "W1CF-4square"-array. In order for this antenna to perform, each vertical has to be equal in impedance with the others. As I was having wires only elements, this involved quite some hard work. It seemed that this array had almost too many variables that affects it's behaviour. After a whole week with 3 hours a day of sqeezing and pruning, it came clear that all verticals were less than 10 kHz off in their resonancies.
Then came the radial installing time. After some few weeks with radials, radials and "radial-buswires" under a nearby local driveway and some 10 groundstakes, the system was made up of some 400 wires and a total of 26 kilometers (16 miles); the system seemed to work reasonably...
After some few hundred hours of chasing DX (calling CQ mostly) it came clear to me that I could hear very much better than others operating on the band. As we in Scandinavia only have some 8 % of the static activity of what they have in W4-land (Florida), we are quite fortunate. With my reduced noise pickup I could work DX on 80m all year long. During summer it was hardly possible to come in contact with stations I heard calling DX and were 589 ! (Remember NO PILEUP QRM !).
Something had to be done...
I started to work on achieving a more penetrating CW-waveform, CW-speed and higher CW-power. I came over some military surplus transmitters, that I converted into amplifiers. The strongest one could almost give me enough, but I still could receive better than I could transmit.
Having such an array one cannot neglect in comprehend something also around the specific WAVE PROPAGATION each band has. There is a number of different behaviours on each band, mainly depending upon where You are located.

In 1994, September 30th I found an Helena, and the radio activities started to become less important. She got kind of fed up with all my radio equipment though, but she sort of promised though to learn the CW-code, in order to communicate her self in the future!