Man, sometimes a topic starts going through your head, you do a little research and then start going all over the place. This is one of them – antenna analyzers. I’m a huge fan of them and run antenna clinics for our local club. This tool is one quick way to get a snapshot of your antennas performance in a jiffy.
For those that have seen the MFJ analyzers, they basically consist of a low power transmitter and various circuitry to do the math and display the antenna or feedline information on an LCD screen.
Oztales strikes again with a very well done video. The descriptions should give hams without an engineering background a very strong understanding of what is going on behind this “mystery box”.
While I’m “down under” let me show you a really neat analyzer kit that can be had for a fraction of the cost of the larger analyzers like the MFJ. If you’re willing to burn a little solder, you can make a very sweet analyzer (I’m thinking of getting this kit as well, seems a good companion piece to my AADE LCR Meter). As of this writing, the kit mentioned here costs $150.00 AUD for DX orders – which is a bargain!
As you can see, it has many things in common with the higher priced analyzers as far as layout and such. Just keep in mind, from what I’ve seen in the picture and on their site, this is an HF only analyzer and does not have six meters – strictly 10 and up.
The kit is available from the South Coast Amateur Radio Club and on their website at:
http://www.scarc.org.au/kits.html
But……….
Across the pond, someone built one of these kits and you can get a really good idea of what is inside the kit. This video is what is now making me consider purchasing this kit:
BYRONLOCAL’s Youtube channel has a few other videos that may be part of the kit (components) but I haven’t watch them yet, so check his channel if you want more information.
Oztales has scratched the surface of what you can do with an analyzer. If you practice your google-fu, you’ll find lots of other great uses/mods for analyzers to expand their capability.
