No.....it will not be another Maunder Minimum.

Get informed by the experts:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/11jul_solarcycleupdate.htm

Grounding...the first thing I did before I ever keyed the mic.
I never unplug anything and there has been plenty of arcing on the beam during our static charged storms here in West Texas. I have never had a direct that I know of but I do not worry about it at all.

Pics of grounding and tower install:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25363263@N03/sets/72157605472890242/

I got it hung yesterday evening but something is not right .
My desired frequency is around 7.212.

Heres how I checked it with my MFJ 269B:
1)Connected the meter at the end of my 1/4 wave "Q" section after it has passed through a Polypahser with a 1' patch of RG8 I get a swr of 2.7 pretty flat between 7150 - 7300 with meter indicating 100ohm's.
2)Connected the meter at the end of a 50' piece of RG8 connected again at the suppresor input and I get an swr of 2.4 not quite as flat and indicating 100ohm's.

All of my coax looks good with extremely low loss. Also I am hanging feedpoint through a Unadilla center no-balun insulator. No baluns inline.

I run through my suppresor box because it grounds the shield quite well and I can route out of it into my PVC pipe that carries my cables into the shack. I could side step it if necessary but I would rather not.

I do agree and that is what I humbly expect to find before I do any reorienting.

Thank you...very keenly seasoned observations sir.

Carlos, I have had similar issues with my 430S in the past. If you need some good advice shoot this guy an email http://www.amateur-repairs.com/index.htm. He is a nice guy and very helpful.

As I have the loop as close to horizontal as I can get it to start I am feeding on a level plane. Rather than being omnidirectional the loop should respond to the cosine of the angle between its face and the direction of arrival of the electromagnetic wave. This actually produces a figure eight pattern. So if it is horizontal the feed point should not matter yet some directionality can be in the direction of the feed point. When I lower two corners in other words have a high and low point feeding from the top or bottom segment will result in a horizontal pole while feeding from the side should result in a vertical lobe.

Anyway, I can try it in several dimensions and see what happens. I have so many variables (obstacles - house, tower, shack sits below the tower) I don't know what the heck will happen.

But, it will be fun to find out. I really enjoy this part of the hobby. No matter what, we all seem to have such varying results from the same type of homebrew antennas.
Next up I have the tubing for a 40m 1/4 vertical (with or without capacity hat) to compare with. Which will be better for DX? Which will be less noisy in an urban environ?

Thanks Mike....
I wondered since I would run it through my LDG tuner if it would be overkill with the balun. Yes I see what you are saying with the chokes. You know, I don't even need the dang chokes at the tuner because I run my txcvr out through a Bencher low pass. I haven't connected the cables in the shack yet and forgot I had the txcvr running through the filter as its been awhile since I've been back there. Glad you brought it up. I really worry about TVI and stray RF because I am in town and you can spit on the neighbors house. I have never had any problems in my home but he claimed he did once yet never let me investigate after I offered.
I don't have any twin lead but I will see how it works as is and leave that as an option if the match is crummy.
I have read many of W4RNL's articles and he seemed to have success with the 72ohm. I have just never used it as a transformer.

I don't really care if it acts as a cloud warmer at first just want to get a low ratio at the mid 40m ssb. I could then check it out with a varying degree of angles. I do think it may be somewhat directional across the plane of the loop in the direction of the tower attachment. Any experiences there?

Thanks OM for the observations and advice.

I have just constructed a single band 40 meter delta loop. I will be hoisting it up today.
Please tell me if you see any errors or advice to offer with my plan.

One corner of the delta is attached to my tower at 30 feet. This is as high as I can go to keep the loop horizontal as the other corners can only be raised to 30'. The attachment point is extended out from the tower by about 6'.
I am going to utilize 50ohm coax to enter the shack. Since I am looking at around a 100ohm impedance,
per my ARRL antenna book I have constructed a matching transformer out of a 1/4 wavelength of 72ohm RG6 with UHF connectors at each end. The 72ohm chunk will attach to the feed point and extend vertically down my tower. The lower end of the 72ohm coax will enter my surge suppression / Polyphaser box at the bottom of the tower and connect to the output of one of the Polyphasers. The suppression box offers an excellent ground.
The 50ohm coax will attach to the other side of the Polyphaser and run into the shack and connect through my SPG.

I am wondering whether or not to install one of my 1:1 baluns at the feed point. I think I will as it may help to keep down TVI and balance the whole thing out a little better. I also have several snap on chokes installed at the feedpoint on the 72ohm coax and on the 50ohm coax where it connects to my auto tuner.

Please give me any pointers or experience you may have with these types of antennas. I am a beam man and other than a few dipoles have never constructed a loop. My worst fear is that it will hang about 30' from my Dishnetwork dish and local channel aerial.

Thanks!

Oh yeah, I made a backup of my DXkeeper log before import just in case. Always!

DXLab spot collector is the best I have seen out of the three others I have tried. You have so much control (filtering) of the spots that show up. I can pick and choose band, mode, show only entities I need or have not worked, color code how I choose, create my own fields that I want displayed, and I also use the voice announce feature as I perform other functions so I don't have to sit and stare at the spot collector.

I recently purchased a new ACER brand 19" LCD for $149 after rebate. I already had one 17" LCD. I place my DXkeeper log & capture and DXview windows with a minimized Pathfinder window on my 17" screen. I then run DX Atlas on my 19" screen with Spot collector minimized because I am using the voice announce feature. I like the awesome graphics DX ATLAS on the 19".

I have my 17" screen above me on a shelf angled downward with the log stuff running and the other screen to my right on my desktop. I have very little room in my small operating area but I have become an efficient user of space.

Anyway, I here a DX announced by spot collector that I want, tune to the frequency announced, the DX call has automatically been entered into the DXview window (user selectable)by spot collector, check out DXview beam heading for that call, turn beam, bust the pileup and click "Log".

Logged Sweden, Montenegro, one IOTA, Switzerland, and France yesterday morning sipping on a coke while reading an AES catalog. Done!
Sometimes I don't run spot-collector because I still like to do some of the S&P work myself but I wanted to browse that AES ctatlog.

All with 100 watts max output on a 22 year old radio and a bad as* beam.

Only wish I had a newer radio that would interface.

I have not used spot collector in a contest but cant see how it could be any easier. In a contest I would have the spot collector fields/filters (call/freq/spotter location)set up for the type of contest running and up on my 19", voice announce off, and auto enter to DXview turned on for auto beam heading.
N1MM logger would be running above me on my 17" and a dupe sheet window & rate window up on the 19" beside spot collector.

I have been around a little and I can tell you I have a  very basic station but DXLab does makes me more competitive, helps me reach "my" personal goals and makes up for my radio's lack of features. All I have to do is spin the dial and hit "enter".

Well this seems to be a hotter topic than I imagined.

I have only been in one contest where I used a logger.
On Jan. 19th I participated in the NAQP SSB contest. This was my first contest in several years and the first at my new station. After reading some positive reviews I downloaded N1MM a few days prior and learned how to run it with some fake qso's. The program worked great and was very easy to use. Yesterday before the big game I went ahead and made an ADIF file and imported into DXkeeper. It worked perfect. My NAQP log contained call, name and state/province.
DXkeeper imported the ADIF file, interfaced with QRZ during the import and filled in the blank fields.

Not one error. I was very impressed. I was only able to work a few hours of the contest but import of 400+ contacts wit no hiccups was cool. I set DXkeeper to default all of the QSL fields blank on import and that worked just fine.

Now I am trying to get started with LOTW so I can start using that upload feature of DXkeeper as well. The more I use this software the more I like it as I rack up some experience.

Another question while I am on the subject. I have several DX contacts (10-15) that I never did QSL. I'm talking about back in the mid-late 90's. And to further the issue I had a different call. Would it be worth it to try and track those contacts/managers down. I guess if they still had the logs and managers change. Some of them are kind of rare like Easter Island to name one and all on ten meters. Do people do this or should I just write it off to experience?

Thats been my concern as well. Thats why I think you find one you like and stick with it. But, it would be nice to know the answer to your question before one manually enters all of his contacts. No way I could do that now. I paid my 17 yr old daughter to enter a few hundred for me and I did many myself. We had to set all of the QSL info for each one from my paper records. She types more accurately than I do and is much more careful. I will never get them all entered but I have the bulk with careful attention to any DX.

You know, I think you should send AA6QY an email and ask him. He has a great reputation of support for his DXLab products. If anyone would know it would probably be him as he has probably seen it all. And after all he is not trying  to sell anything.

Typing error:

Should be: Now HOW is that folks?

I must tell you that after seeing this post, Dave Bernstein AA6QY DXLab Suite developer emailed me to address any concerns I had with the software.

Now has is that folks? This gentleman HAM is giving the stuff away and emailing me to address any concerns I have?

Unbelievable in this day and age.

I guess thats all the "advice" I need.

Scott