What Happened To My K9AYs?

The simple answer is that I reinstated the flag after less than satisfactory results with a couple of K9AYs.

I was warned! Some DXers had told me that the K9AY would not outperform a flag. Quite encouraging if you're already a flag owner. But there's plenty of evidence to show that the K9AY is also a great performer. I have always been aware of the unavoidable fact that some people get on really well with certain antennas while others don't. It can depend on location, among many other things, so there are people who have had the opposite experience. To begin with, I had been reading about the superior performance of the K9AY and how directional it was when two were constructed and phased against each other. I had to try it. Having to move my flag several times each year to chase different 'propagational seasons' was a pain. If I could construct one antenna and have it electrically rotatable, it would solve that problem.

"The Full Gary" was needed. This is the required size for a K9AY which was best resonant on the medium wave band. This is 7.5m in height with a suspended base of 9m and longer radials just below. But even with this size, I wasn't initially aware that a K9AY would perform as if it was a loop antenna at the bottom of the band. Hmm. That's not what I wanted to hear. Regardless, I continued with the construction.

As always, these things take a long time for me and it took several days to construct the central support, connect the wires and guy ropes such that I could throw it up in the air one day while disconnecting the flag and laying that down out of the way. I was hoping to have both antennas in the air for instant comparison, but this turned out to be impractical due to necessary field usage, so I took plenty of notes beforehand. I knew how the band 'felt' anyway.

The K9AY was erected without issue and hooked up, working straight away. There was some noise and signals were considerably down on to those of the flag, but I hadn't connected the base radials as I ran out of time and so had to finish those the following day.

Base radials in place ... Antenna hooked up ... Receiver on ... and ... Ugh! 30dB of noise across the band! Whaaaat? Where did this come from? I arranged a telephone call with a friend who has considerable knowledge in this field and he went through everything with me: Connections, physical dimensions, antenna location, coax, receiver, shack, etc. We checked it all. The conclusion was clear, that the noise was coming in through the antenna. But where was the noise coming from? Surely it couldn't be new noise which coincidentally fired up at on the same day I constructed my new antenna? Maybe it had been there all along but the flag was less susceptible to it. That would be more logical. Or would it? Signals were also down by a good 10dB or so compared to those of the flag.

After a few days of checking things through, I was painfully aware that I was missing DX and that I should probably get the flag up again. After all, I had tried everything.

So it was back to the flag. Was there new noise? It seems there was. What were the chances? But the noise was considerably less severe on the flag and, after a few days, most of it had disappeared. Phew!