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About G4TPH.comThe new 100 watt model now available
A bit of History about Me My Name is Tom Brockman and G4TPH is my British call sign. I was first licensed in the USA as K8VST in 1959. Due to Military service I ended up living in England having married a British citizen. In 1982 I did the British exams and became G4TPH.
I have always experimented with antennas and tell the story about loading up an aluminium garden chair on 6 meters in the 1960’s using 90 watts, a Heathkit transmitter, and AM mode. (A 5 element Hygain beam was the usual antenna used). The reports were “ you’re not as strong as usual”. My response was: “I’ll move my chair” You can imagine how the rest of the QSO went.
I have been an ative member of the Newbury and District Amateur Radio Society (NADARS) for many years. I am also a memeber of the International QRP club.
I attended The Dayton Hamfest in 2008 having carried 40 antennas in my luggage. I sold all. Due to the recession I haven't attended Dayton hamfest again.
 Development of the G4TPH Magloops
My wife and I bought a holiday apartment in Spain in 2007. Wishing to do some operating (while the wife was in the pool as you do) I bought an FT817 and a Miracle Whip. Well I stuggled to make any contacts with this and decided there must be a better portable antenna.
I then built a wire magnetic loop antenna designed by G4FON. This worked very well. I decided that my magnetic loop antenna needed to be portable and self supporting so came up with the idea of using aluminium rails a single Air-Spaced capacitor instead of beehive capacitors. After several design changes I finally had a portble magloop antenna that covered 40 metres through 20 metres and would give an SWR of 1.5 or better on each of the bands.
I showed this antenna at the NADARS Radio Rally the summer of 2007. There was so much interest in how well it worked I started making up a few (10 off initially). This was the birth of the ML-40 Magloop. I have now developed several new models all being improvements on the original designs.
The orginal G4TPH portable Magloop antenna
I then decided with the possiblity of some sun spots possibly coming soon I would like to be able to operate on 15 and 10 metres.
This lead to the development of the ML-20 that tunes 20 metres through 10 metres. During the Spring of 2010 with sporatic E openings on 6 metres I then devloped the ML-6-2. Once this antenna was developed for 6 metres testing showed it tuned quite well on 2 metres also, thus the name ML-6-2. This antenna requires no tuning as you move frequency across the 6 metre band and provides an SWR of 1.3:1 across the band (2.1:1 across 2 metres) Unlike the ML_40 and ML-20, the ML_6-2 will handle 50 watts power.
The orginal ML-20 and ML-40 antennas have now been replaced with the ML-40 MKII and ML-20 MKII, both with improved performace.
See the product page for more details
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|
Date |
Time |
Freq |
Mode |
Power |
Contact |
Sent |
Received |
|
26-3-11 |
12:53 |
28.468 |
SSB |
5 |
D4C |
59001 |
59049 |
|
26-3-11 |
12:04 |
21.245 |
SSB |
5 |
RM3F |
59002 |
591337 |
|
26-3-11 |
15:18 |
14.243 |
SSB |
35 |
S50K |
59003 |
591015 |
|
26-3-11 |
15:20 |
14.247 |
SSB |
35 |
9A7A |
59004 |
59714 |
|
26-3-11 |
15:28 |
14.267 |
SSB |
35 |
HG2011N |
59005 |
59763 |
|
26-3-11 |
16:52 |
14.287 |
SSB |
35 |
9A1P |
59006 |
59860 |
|
26-3-11 |
16:58 |
14.320 |
SSB |
35 |
S520SLD |
59007 |
591149 |
|
26-3-11 |
17.03 |
14.315 |
SSB |
35 |
OL9Z |
59008 |
591007 |
|
27-3-11 |
09:10 |
21.252 |
SSB |
35 |
RL3A |
59009 |
594081 |
Equipment,
5 Watt, FT817,
35 Watt FT857,
Antennas: ML-20 MKII
Position: Mounted horizontally in workshop ceiling.
Conditions: Massive International Contest in progress.