DX-88 SWR on 2015.11.07

Today we got the first storm warning of this season and so I went out to secure the DX-88 with 4 guy-wires. At the same time I did a new tuning round because I have noticed that some of the bands have moved since the last adjustment. This time I have managed to get 30 meters working.

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DX-88 Overview

The DX-88 is a very good vertical antenna by Hy-Gain, which covers the 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12 and 10 meter bands. With an optional kit the DX-88 can also work on 160 meters. The antenna is self supporting and comes with stainless steel hardware making it quite robust in windy conditions. Like any other vertical antenna, the DX-88 performs best with a ground radial system.

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IC-765 Tuner Problems

When I was testing my newly acquired IC-765 last Christmas, I had some troubles with the built-in antenna tuner. From time to time, it would start re-tuning the antenna in the beginnig or even the middle of my transmissions.

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DX-88 Tuning

By studying the graphs in the User Manual I have come to the following parameters, which are supposed to be good enough for CW work. Note that 80 and 40 meters can not be tuned independently, which is why the centre frequency on 80 meters is set to 3.6 MHz.

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DX-88 is up again

I felt I should give the FT-817 a fair chance, so I have put the DX-88 up again. Of course, I have new tuning parameters and it seemed, that some of the parameters were not like they should have been.

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A Little Disappointed

I put up the DX-88 together to have a good test run with my new IC-765. I did not bother too much in adjusting the parameters; they were quite good last time. Consequently, the SWR is far from impressive on most bands. It even seems to oscillate on some bands, eg. 30 meters. Hmm…

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The DX-88 is Up

After a trip to a local do-it-yourself centre to get some new U-bolts, the antenna is finally up again.
I tried to be careful in adjusting the lengths of the tuneable elements to be as accurate as possible but, apperantly, I did not succeed very well.

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