80/40 CCD Antenna Eval

I Just recently purchased a 80/40 Meter CCD Antenna from CCDantennas.com. I was looking for the magical antenna that will meet my 80 and 40 meter needs, I figured I would try this antenna, if it was another low sunspot gimmick antenna I was going to let everyone know. First impressions of this antenna were that the wire used is very nice but the capacitor boards appeared to be flimsy. The capacitor boards are approximately 1” by ½” with a 500 silver 500 volt caps soldered into it like a circuit board, the board itself appears to be some sort of epoxy resin with a trace. A better description can be found at http://ccdantennas.com/CCD/

I was unable to immediately put the antenna up because of tower construction so I let W5ERX Wade borrow the antenna for ARRL field day.

He reported back to me that he was only able to get the antenna to about 25 feet or so and the ends about 8’ off the ground. He went on to tell me that the antenna worked phenomenal and they had pile ups on 80 meters from the west coast. His field day location was near Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas. The SWR on the antenna was a bit high due to its elevation but worked fantastic.

About 2 weeks after the ARRL field day I was able to get the antenna mounted on the partially erected 100’ tower. We placed the antenna at 63’ and stretched out the 230’ of wire, with the ends being about 30 to 40 feet off the ground.

All I can say is WOW, I am in a regular ragchew roundtable just about every night on 3.810 the low band thumpers and don’t have to run the amp anymore. I am consistently 15 to 30 db over every night from San Antonio to Dallas and down to Brownsville Texas. With 59+ reports from Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, Missouri and New Mexico, I can’t complain.

My first 40 meter contact was with a ham in Stanly New Mexico at 1500pm local time 100 watts and he gave me a 58 easy copy report. Since then I have heard DX on 40 I never heard on my inverted V antenna.

This antenna is not perfect by any means but the performance is unbelievable the SWR never reaches above 1.5 with legal limit across 90% of both bands.

So things in the back of my mind are the circuit boards the caps are mounted on, I am wondering how long they will last exposed to this Texas sun , not to mention corrosion and pollutants that may damage the caps or build up corrosion and short the caps.

I would suggest making some sort of an enclosure for the caps maybe something as simple as a snap cover used on ferrites, or seal the entire small unit in epoxy. I will leave that to the experts and concentrate on using this super performer of an antenna.

This thing works very well and I would endorse it to anyone. I am not an antenna engineer but the folks at CCDantennas.com can answer your questions.

Title: CCD Antenna
Category: Amateur Antennas
Sub-Category: Wire Antennas
Author: N6AQ
Related Link: CCDantennas.com
Added: Jul 19, 2009
Hits: 298
Score:
Options: