MFJ-1796 - On hold

I took it outside to attempt tuning today and discovered a detail I didn't pay much attention to the manual..

It refers to the 40m rings as having space for 6 spokes each. Mine has space for 4. 

The manual also refers to the fact that it should be resonant just below each of the bands it supports. 

My results however:

7.4 MHz - 1.37:1

14.230 MHz 1.01:1

21.080 MHz 1:02:1

29.0 MHz 4.50:1

Not all bad, but on an antenna built with the intention of coarse tuning it that should start out below each band, clearly it's NQR. 

It dawned on me pretty quickly that those missing spokes were the key. Temporarily I used the "long" spokes that came as spares - all 4 of them - 2 on each end. 

7.070 MHz - 1.47:1

14.210 MHz  1:1

21.1 MHz 1:1

29.0 MHz 4.04

Definite improvement. For the moment at least, 40m is usable for digital modes. The problem of course is that 40m doesn't have a lot of bandwidth on this antenna, and I'd really like to be aiming to tune it a fraction higher so I can use some of 7.1 for phone. 

In the end, I've emailed Gigaparts to see if they can obtain the correct rings and ship them to me. In the mean time, assuming the Big Green Shed hurries up and finishes my last click n' collect order, I should have enough screws to put it back together properly - then I'll put it up and at least get some use out of it. For FT8 on 40 and 15, it's in a reasonable state. I'm also curious to see how I go receiving 6m.

One of the offending 40m rings.