Over the winter of 2002/2003 I had been doing a little antenna experimentation. Ya see, I live in a restricted neighborhood where no outside antennas are allowed. But, I also have a pretty wild back yard that is inhabited by 70 foot fir trees. The solution seemed obvious!
So, I buried about 200 feet of LMR-400 coaxial cable running from the shack out into the 'wilderness' that is my back yard. At the end of the coax run I had been running a wire vertical strung up in a big ol' fir tree. For a ground system, I had a six foot copper clad steel ground rod pounded into the earth along with thirty 33 foot magnet wire radials laid out on the surface of the ground. The antenna was simply copper wire with a few traps to allow operation on 80, 40 and 20 meters.
But, I wanted more! I really wanted the ability to run on any band and, with only 20 watts of power from my PRC-2000 Tactical HF Transceiver I wanted a good match between the antenna and the feedline. After contemplating my options for a while I decided a remote coupler would be the proper solution. So, I obtained an SGC-237, mounted it in a watertight box I scrounged at Boeing Surplus and mounted it at the ground stake. To power the coupler, I run 12VDC down the coax itself with suitable decoupling at each end of the feedline.
I started with a simple vertical wire running up into a tree since such an installation is very stealthy. Then, I realized that a horizontal wire would be equally stealthy if it could be fed with a single wire feedline -- a Windom!!
And so it came to pass that I put up an 80 meter half wave Windom. It's a true Windom with a single wire feed. The feed is 50 feet long and the top portion of the antenna is 135 feet long fed 85 feet from one end. Windoms are pretty cool - they work at harmonics of the fundamental design frequency. So, by cutting my Windom for 3.5 MHz it should work well at 3.5, 7.0, 10.5, 14.0, 17.5, 21.0, 24.5 and 28 MHz. Suitably close to any ham band I'd care to use.
Of course, once the antenna was up in the trees, I had to check it out. I got the thing up into the trees on a Friday night, thinking I'd get on the air over the weekend to make a few contacts to see if it was working.
As it turned out, that weekend happened to be the 2003 ARRL CW DX Contest! Now, I've never been a DX hound but I thought, "Hey! What an opportunity!"
A quick look at the ARRL web site (http://www.arrl.org/) got me the contest rules and even a log sheet and I was off and running with my 20 watt tactical HF blowtorch! What a hoot!
| MHz | UTC | Station | Sent | Rcvd | Country |
| 14 | 0233 | PJ2T | 599 WA | 599 KW | Netherland Antilles |
| 14 | 0241 | LU5FF | 599 WA | 599 100 | Argentina |
| 14 | 0248 | ZL1AIH | 599 WA | 599 100 | New Zealand |
| 14 | 0427 | JA3YBK | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 7 | 0445 | HP1/DJ7AA | 599 WA | 599 KW | Panama |
| 7 | 0452 | PJ4G | 599 WA | 599 KW | Netherland Antilles |
| 7 | 0637 | ZW5B | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 7 | 0639 | P40T | 599 WA | 599 KW | Aruba |
| 7 | 0643 | P40Y | 599 WA | 599 KW | Aruba |
| 7 | 0655 | KH7X | 599 WA | 599 KW | Hawaii |
| 7 | 0658 | OA4DKC | 599 WA | 599 10 | Peru |
| 7 | 0719 | VP5LP | 599 WA | 599 KW | Turks Islands |
| 7 | 0727 | 6D2YFM | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 7 | 0733 | TI5N | 599 WA | 599 KW | Costa Rica |
| 7 | 0737 | PJ2T | 599 WA | 599 KW | Netherland Antilles |
| 7 | 0744 | JH7XGN | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 7 | 0805 | CO2JD | 599 WA | 599 100 | Cuba |
| 21 | 1940 | P40Y | 599 WA | 599 KW | Aruba |
| 21 | 1947 | V26G | 599 WA | 599 KW | Antigua |
| 21 | 1955 | TG0AA | 599 WA | 599 KW | Guatemala |
| 21 | 2001 | CS6V | 599 WA | 599 500 | |
| 21 | 2003 | VP5LP | 599 WA | 599 KW | Turks Islands |
| 21 | 2013 | AL1G | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 21 | 2018 | WP2Z | 599 WA | 599 KW | Puerto Rico |
| 21 | 2024 | TI5N | 599 WA | 599 KW | Costa Rica |
| 21 | 2033 | ZF2NT | 599 WA | 599 KW | Cayman Islands |
| 21 | 2045 | 6D2YFM | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 28 | 2049 | 6D2YFM | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 28 | 2051 | VP5LP | 599 WA | 599 KW | Turks Islands |
| 28 | 2106 | OA4DKC | 599 WA | 599 100 | Peru |
| 28 | 2108 | LW9EOC | 599 WA | 599 100 | Argentina |
| 28 | 2112 | TI5N | 599 WA | 599 KW | Costa Rica |
| 28 | 2123 | PJ4G | 599 WA | 599 KW | Netherland Antilles |
| 28 | 2127 | PY3DX | 599 WA | 599 KW | Brazil |
| 28 | 2129 | PT5T | 599 WA | 599 KW | Brazil |
| 28 | 2134 | TG0AA | 599 WA | 599 KW | Guatemala |
| 28 | 2136 | PY1NX | 599 WA | 599 100 | Brazil |
| 28 | 2143 | V31DJ | 599 WA | 599 600 | Belize |
| 28 | 2149 | LU1DZ | 599 WA | 599 500 | Argentina |
| 28 | 2152 | LT5F | 599 WA | 599 KW | Argentina |
| 21 | 2231 | JA3YBK | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 14 | 2239 | XE1MM | 599 WA | 599 200 | Mexico |
| 14 | 2244 | ZF2NT | 599 WA | 599 KW | Cayman Islands |
| 14 | 2252 | 6D2YFM | 599 WA | 599 KW | |
| 21 | 2313 | JA2FSM | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 21 | 2318 | PY2KN | 599 WA | 599 KW | Brazil |
| 21 | 2319 | KH7X | 599 WA | 599 KW | Kure Island |
| 21 | 2326 | JH5FXP | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 21 | 2334 | JA9PPC | 599 WA | 599 KW | Japan |
| 21 | 2337 | CX7BY | 599 WA | 599 KW | Uraguay |
Well, it was a very modest effort but it did give me a certain amount of evidence that the antenna was going to work just fine. Oh yeah, it was a ton of fun!
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