KØXB - Rick at
My
New CrankIR
Here’s another view of the CrankIR, looking skyward.
For my portable operation
in California, I used a Sidekick antenna made by High Sierra until December,
2015. I bought it and a lightweight
portable tripod from Quicksilver (www.qsradio.com),
and I replaced the short whip which came with the Sidekick with a 12 ft.
telescoping whip sold by MFJ. I used
eight radials on the ground, each twenty-five feet long, although the small
private backyard allowed me to stretch only four of the radials out fully.
With this simple antenna
and 100W, I worked all fifty states on both mixed mode and RTTY, plus all forty
zones and 220 countries.
The trusty Sidekick
finally wore out, so I replaced it with a CrankIR portable vertical antenna
made by SteppIR in December, 2015. One of my first contacts was with FR1GV in
Reunion Island (11,525 miles away), so it seems to be working well.
Here’s an article I
wrote for the Twin City DX Club Gray Line in 2011. And here’s another I
wrote for the San Diego DX Club Bulletin in 2013.