With some help from a friend I now have the ability to listen to HF from the apartment. In the evening at home I can listen to eighty, forty and twenty meters fairly well although there is some noise.
I repaired the 80 meter antenna with a new center piece. The old center feed had no connectivity to the antenna. The problem was just rusty connections. There is a new center piece now and it is all coax fed. Twenty meter wires have been added to the antenna. Normally I use a balun, but just wanted to test with out one and will eventually swap one into the 80/20 antenna. I put together a forty meter dipole, a fifteen meter folded dipole fed with 300 ohm ladder line and a G5RV. The plan is to test these before FD with the MFJ-259b which had to go to the factory for repair.
The MFJ-259b was damaged by static in the middle of the antenna experimenting the second day I had it. All I can say is ground everything before plugging into the device. There are some very easily damaged diodes on the input.
I am on vacation this next week and plan to try to test the antennas here at the apartment or at a park. This afternoon there are plans to check out another area park for field day.
Tim
