Roomcap DX report

Roomcap Antenna in Puerto Rico on 30m and 40m

Milton, WP4DQK in Puerto Rico sent me on the second day of this year his
experience he made with the Roomcap antenna.
He is living in the center of the island, about 30 Km away from the sea.

Interesting is his possibility, to compare the Roomcap with a full size
1/4 wave vertical, and inverted V dipols, and Long Wire antennas.

Here his e-mail:

Betreff:
Re: hb9abx roomcap
Von:
mriutort at coqui.net
Datum:
Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:22:27 -0400
An:
Felix Meyer hb9abx <FELIX-ABX at GMX.CH>

Hi Felix:

First of all, yes I build a three roomcap antennas with your instructions.
Actually all of them are out of service because of material used for
construction. I have problem finding the PVC plastic cover material and the one
used do not resist the outdoor weather here for long time.

Any way, the antennas demonstrate a very good performance against my normal
full size inverted V dipoles, verticals and the Long Wire here. The best
signals report was obtained with the 40m band model. I compare it side to side
with the full 1/4 wave vertical and sometimes specially during dayline time
I can hear better on the RoomCap. The report are equal but not all the times.
Sometimes the full size vertical do a better job sometimes the RoomCap.
What I know for sure is that the antenna have a very low angle of reception or
at least this appear to me. Other significant difference are the signal to noise level
that RoomCap always demostrate better than the full size Vertical here.

40m antenna installation:

Both antennas were on the Roof of the house. The Vertical full size one is
using the metal fence of the roof as the counterpoise, no ground to the floor.
It works like a elevate Ground Plane. The RoomCap is installed into the roof
but use another counterpoise that is smaller and not grounded to anything.

By the way the 30m model was also installed there and both together work very well.

It has the same ability to listen better from Europe on dayline hours.
I remember that I sometimes can copy EU station on the RoomCap that disappear
on the Inverted V dipole.
I need to say that this antennas have a very different signal capture angle
and in the dayline they can do a better DX antenna job, even better than the
full size verticals or inverted V dipoles. They also demonstrate a better
signal to noise values. I guess that the small physical size help on this.
The QRN on the Caribbean are always strong than on other latitudes and the
roomcap help with this.

The ability of listen better sometimes during dayline time make it necessary
for chasing DX. The same way ham use different antennas for different job,
location or operating time, the RoomCap should be include on the antenna arsenal.

...

I hope that you are in a good health this time and hope that this new year give
us a much better health. We talk about this before.

Happy New Year 2009
Best wishes / 73
Milton (WP4DQK)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

UPDATE 13.Jan 2009: Now on 80m Roomcap from Puerto Rico

On the 4th of January 2009, Milton, WP4DQK reported his 30m and 40m results.
Now he built the 80m version.
He compared with a 40m Long Wire antenna and received the
better results with the Roomcap antenna of 2m size!
(2 Operators: Milton WP4DQK, and Alberto WP4L)

Here this e-mail:

Betreff:
80m RoomCap model
Von:
"Milton Riutort" <milton.riutort at gmail.com>
Datum:
Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:52:04 -0400
An:
"Felix Meyer hb9abx" <FELIX-ABX at gmx.ch>

Hi Felix:

We are working with a new RoomCap model for 80m band and we tested
it last night. We get very well surprise with it. For this band
we only have a Long Wire antenna, which is half wave long on 80m,
tuned with MFJ-969 inside the shack. This antenna always give us
good result to Europe and US Station.

The RoomCap was installed at the same place we put the other models
(on Roof Observatory) and for ours good surprise, both antennas have
the same signals, but sometimes the RoomCap goes 1 and 2 S units better.
Again, this is incredible good for this size radiating element.

How works? Incredible well. We tried to put on air as soon as possible
because we wanted to work some States Stations on North America QSO party
yesterday night and we did. I worked 23 Stations (one VE2 in Ontario) running 100W.
This was during watching TV and getting in and out of the shack by small operating time.
I remember that only two stations do not copy me the first try and only one station
from West Virgina do not copy me at all with any of the antennas.
All the contact did with the RoomCap.

Passing the midnight Dad (WP4L) Start calling DX on the low part of the band
and work tree EU station with 579 to 599 reports and another US Stations.
This morning, my Dad was working a Rod Island (Rhode Island) Station that copy him
on the RoomCap and loose him completely on the Long Wire antenna.

Again, this is not a scientific antenna test and a lot of things may be affecting
the antennas, but the 80m RoomCap show a very hard contester against the Long Wire.
I see up to 2 S units better signals on the RoomCap with some Stations.

Thanks for the good antenna and the lot of fun...

Best 73!
Milton WP4DQK