So peeps know. What happened was 30m 4SQ went up fine. It had a 200mW WSPR beacon attached to it as wanted to see how 30m would do. Operated in BERU and was clear needed much better RX on 40m for ‘lesser 40m stns from UK’ so rapid think…. I sacrificed the 30m 4SQ and made up a 2el on 40m using two of the poles from 30m 4SQ, two of the 30m GP wires became the 40m GP’s after splicing in sections from the 3rd GP wire. So ended up with 2 resonant 40m GP’s then the phasing lines…. had a sample of various lengths of Belbin 9913 coax non of it was new or seemed ‘good’ as the measured velocity factor were way off but through the use of mini VNA and judicial pruning got two good lengths to form the 1/4 and 3/4 wavelength phasing lines. Fed the whole lot with a good length of 50 ohm coax (was feeding a 2m vertical) into a box that was bought from the meagre choice at local JayCar (aka RadioSpares). 40m GP radials made up from remains of 100m reel I took out there and other random wire. Spaced the two about 24-25 feet apart to maximum RX from UK and minimize JA and VK (which I could still hear anyway but much less as both in the nulls). Almost no gain behind all towards UK (35 degrees anyway) so NA signals were much louder too… cannot have it all!…. anyway result was in between two 40m openings went from no RX directivity to decent RX deirectivity to UK and managed to put some UK stations into the log. Was ready with minutes to spare.
So peeps know. What happened was 30m 4SQ went up fine. It had a 200mW WSPR beacon attached to it as wanted to see how 30m would do. Operated in BERU and was clear needed much better RX on 40m for ‘lesser 40m stns from UK’ so rapid think…. I sacrificed the 30m 4SQ and made up a 2el on 40m using two of the poles from 30m 4SQ, two of the 30m GP wires became the 40m GP’s after splicing in sections from the 3rd GP wire. So ended up with 2 resonant 40m GP’s then the phasing lines…. had a sample of various lengths of Belbin 9913 coax non of it was new or seemed ‘good’ as the measured velocity factor were way off but through the use of mini VNA and judicial pruning got two good lengths to form the 1/4 and 3/4 wavelength phasing lines. Fed the whole lot with a good length of 50 ohm coax (was feeding a 2m vertical) into a box that was bought from the meagre choice at local JayCar (aka RadioSpares). 40m GP radials made up from remains of 100m reel I took out there and other random wire. Spaced the two about 24-25 feet apart to maximum RX from UK and minimize JA and VK (which I could still hear anyway but much less as both in the nulls). Almost no gain behind all towards UK (35 degrees anyway) so NA signals were much louder too… cannot have it all!…. anyway result was in between two 40m openings went from no RX directivity to decent RX deirectivity to UK and managed to put some UK stations into the log. Was ready with minutes to spare.