I need one of our antenna gurus to give me some input- I have an 18'-4" telescoping antenna I have been using when camping. By adjusting length, I can get it to tune at <1.5 SWR on all bands 20M and above. So far so good, but when do we ever leave well enough alone.
I'm getting ready to travel for a while, and wanted to extend the range down to 40M. So I used the calculators at Coil-Shortened Vertical Antenna Calculator (66pacific.com) <https://www.66pacific.com/calculators/coil-shortened-vertical-antenna-calculator.aspx> to determine the necessary coil. It said I need 4.9 mH. I made the coil per the calcs one the same site, using a 1.9 inch diameter PVC pipe. I'm running it bottom-loaded. By tapping the coil a couple of turns down, I can get it to tune to 7.2 mhz, but the SWR is >6. If I put my hand very close to the coil , the frequency shifts (expected), and the SWR drops to 1.2. So I tried adjusting the length and tapping different turns, never better than 4 SWR on any frequency around 7 mhz. However, if I get my hand near the coil, SWR drops. Thinking this meant I needed capacitance, I tried a hat to the whip, with several different designs and sizes. Changes frequency, but horrible SWR still. Bypassing the coil I can adjust the whip and get great SWR on 14 mhz and above. So, I don't think it's a problem with the coax (20 feet of RG8X) or nanoVNA. Google shows up all sorts of sites showing making a coil loaded shortened vertical like i'm trying. None mention the issue I'm seeing as a problem. I'd appreciate any input, I've been 'learning' on this for a couple of days now and haven't gotten it to work yet. Thanks, Andre W4SFZ
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