First impressions of the MP-1

I bought the MP-1 together with my Sparrow 40 kit from the German QRP Shop in October last year. I didn’t post any test results back then, but now here they are…

Few days ago, I rigged the MP-1 together. I tried it indoor so there were no radials and I couldn’t even deploy the telescopic part to full-size. Still, it seemed to be quite good and I could actually receive a lot of ham traffic. The signals were, of course, not as strong as they would have been from a full size dipole but I was still quite impressed.

Today I rigged the IC-765 and MP-1 together. I have only used the MP-1 for reception so far, but now it’s time to do some smoke tests as well. The antenna was mounted indoor right next to the IC-765 and there was no room to fully deploy the telescopic section.

I started with 18 MHz where the SWR was not too good. The built in tuner in the 765 had no problems matching it, though. I felt quite comfortable in putting 20 Watts into the antenna, but even 50 Watts seemed all right.

On 14 MHz I could get the SWR all the way down to 1.2 by adjusting the coil. Nice… I listened a little on the band, I could pick up som EU stations but otherwise it was quite dead.

I didn’t try the other bands. I see no point in testing too much when the antenna can not be freely deployed. In any case, it seems that the antenna will work just fine for /P use.