Galena, Alaska: Paul’s evolving listening post

Paul-Walker-Galena-Alaska-TEcsun-PL880

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Paul Walker, who writes:

My listening post as it stands now

Time: 1600-1700 UTC
Location: Galena, Alaska (Rural central interior, halfway between
Nome & Fairbanks)
Equipment:Tecsun PL880, 225 foot long wire oriented north south and 225 foot long wire oriented east west, EmTech ZM2 Antenna Tuner, Workman Antenna Switch and DXEngineering RPA-1PLUS HF PreAmp

Paul-Walker-Galena-Alaska

Paul, I hope you’re enjoying the good weather while it’s still summer! I imagine the days and nights are getting cooler already and soon, that beautiful stretch of Yukon will be frozen.

I’m happy to see you’re employing the ZM-2 tuner; it’s an effective little antenna manual tuner and doesn’t need a power source.  Plus, if you ever get your ham radio license, you can use it in the field with QRP equipment. You’ve got a great setup there with quality components!

Spread the radio love

6 thoughts on “Galena, Alaska: Paul’s evolving listening post

  1. DL4NO

    An antenna in Alaska might be quiet enough so a preamp can help. Here in Central Europe I would not need a preamp, but an attenuator.

    I see no reason for a matchbox – besides some selectivity perhaps. I would prefer a small balun to match the the impedance and a terminating resistor on the other end. This type of antenna is called a Beverage.

    A good resource for this is http://www.w0btu.com/Beverage_antennas.html.

    Reply
      1. DL4NO

        Do you have a terminator resistor at the other end of the antenna as any Beverage antenna should have? This makes the antenna aperiodic and mono-directional. you can even switch the direction, as W0BTU describes. See link above.

        On an azimuthal map (http://ns6t.net/azimuth/azimuth.html) you will see that you could switch your west-east antenna between south-east Asia and the New England states or Near East. On the north-south antenna you could reduce the atmospheric noise coming frm the Pacific Ocean.

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.