Re: "Shelter at Home" -- A Tinkering Nerd's Dream!
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<<< I'm really interested in any "exotic" antenna that will work with my PL-600. Any ideas? Whats a ballpark price for the construction of one of the small FSL and are the materials readily available? 73's >>>
Hi Ron, There have been several "full construction" articles published for small FSL antennas, with all of them using the Russian surplus 140mm and 160mm ferrite rods (which are still available on eBay). A 5 inch diameter FSL model with a "design price" of $95 (construction parts only) was published in 2012, and is linked at http://www.mediafire.com/file/9ze98h293s85p86/5_inch_FSL.doc/file That particular model is being upgraded as one of the current design projects, with 1062/46 Litz wire (significantly more sensitive) and a "384P" variable cap from Mike's Electronic Parts (significantly higher Q). Together, the two upgrades provide a big difference in performance. A 3.5 inch "Frequent Flyer" FSL model was designed (and a full construction article was published) in 2017. It is essentially a shrunken-down 5" FSL with slightly longer ferrite rods and more sensitive Litz wire-- resulting in exactly the same gain. It is a TSA-friendly model designed for overseas air travel in hand carry luggage, and the full construction article is posted at http://www.mediafire.com/file/pnfm8909c77zjoy/3.5inch-FF-FSL.doc/file Because of the increased component costs that model will run about $150 in construction parts. The 5 inch "Frequent Flyer" FSL models that Craig Barnes and I use for Hawaii DXpeditions are built with the lightweight Russian surplus 100mm x 20mm x 3mm ferrite bars, which unfortunately have not been available commercially since 2012. There are very scarce (even among experimenters), so no more articles using them have been published recently. 73, Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA) |
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