Hi Paul
I HAVE CREATED A PHOTO FILE "K5WMS" WITH PHOTOS OF MY BEACON CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION.
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Congratulations on the success, the screenshots, and I'm glad you're having so much fun! I hope you will look for your beacon on the worldwide grabbers too and soon see some DX reception when the conditions are right!
One question I had... I see that you have mounted the PCB nicely in a box with hooks on the side, which look like they are designed so that the transmitter sits directly at the centre of the dipole... the dipole attaching to those two hooks. Then the coax brings power in at the "bottom" of the box (when it is hung on the tower).
I'm no antenna expert at all, but I wondered about something... The LPF output is designed for 50 ohms output so putting it at the middle of the dipole should be Ok. However one arm of the antenna would also be connected directly to PCB ground, which is itself connected to the coax power feed cable. This means that the coax feed cable would form effectively part of the antenna "dipole", unbalancing it and probably no longer matching it to 50 ohms.
I wonder if the results might be even better if this situation could be avoided. Perhaps a balun between the TX and the dipole? Or perhaps you could fit a couple of RF chokes at the two power connection inputs, to stop RF going back down the power feed cable?
Feel free to ignore me if I'm talking giberish, as I say, I'm no expert on antennas (or anything else, for that matter).
73 Hans G0UPL
