HF From an Apartment. The Project is Underway

With finances being tight as mentioned previously, I decided to begin with the full wave 20m loop antenna which fits OK across my balcony with a bit of a dogleg in one side.

For this antenna, I chose to hang some speaker wire on removable hooks (the ones with the stretchy adhesive). I had ordered some coaxial cable from a local supplier as postage from others was excessive. That was my first mistake. I'd been down this road previously. I should have known better. The roll of coax arrived and it was rubbish. The braid was at best 5% coverage- entirely unsuited to amateur radio! A few days later the HV-600 antenna arrived so I unpacked it and set it up temporarily for tuning purposes in the middle of my balcony with a 20m counterpoise running inside.

This morning I returned the coaxial cable and purchased some better quality cable. I also obtained a three section aluminium pool pole to allow me to place the HV-600 outside of the window and retract it when not in use. So now I will have two HF antennas.

I tuned and tested both antennas today and was happy with the results. I also attempted to make contact with Lyn VK4SWE but there were some issues with my setup of the 706 which really seems to have poor mic gain compared to the 706MKIIG  that I am used to. After giving up on making contact with Lyn I made some adjustments to mic gain and compression until I was getting appropriate ALC and power output.