NØEQ Visits the World's Largest Discone
... Sahuarita AZ USA
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An 80 foot tall Discone On the end of my QRP rig! This antenna was built at the height of the cold war to allow HF communications with the Titan Missle Base at the same site. The missle base is still there, deactivated. It is now the Titan Missle Museum. The discone antenna is now maintained by the Green Valley Amateur Radio Club Any licensed ham may use the antenna. It exhibits a 2:1 or better SWR on any of the ham bands between 5 and 30 MHz. My visit to this RF monster was during the Area 7 QSO Party May 3, 2008 |
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Operating as a visitor is simple Go to the front desk at the missle museum, sign the log and show them a copy of your ham license. Then park next to the antenna and find the well marked metal box with the red sign. There's a length of coax inside, donated by users. Unroll the coax, connect to your rig, talk to the world! Some ham has made a very nice, laminated SWR chart showing the SWR of the discone. That chart is inside the metal box along with the coax. In the photos you see hams from the local Green Valley Amateur Radio Club plus some hams from a Tucson club a few miles north. I drove down from Scottsdale (150 miles) to visit the beast. |
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Park, Connect, Operate! Another visiting ham donated partial funds for the picnic table. The local ham club covered the remainder. Thanks unknown visitor and thanks GVARC! The blue canopy and the folding tables are temporary. They were brought down by the Radio Society of Tucson, K7RST. In the photo, there is a difficult to see ham, seated near the open rear doors of the small trailer. He is connected to the discone. The ham with his back to us is using either a Buddipole, or a GREAT looking multiband dipole on a 10 ft tripod. My rapid deploy station is in the black nylon case on the picnic table. I'm not yet connected to an antenna. |
  
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Several Portable Stations in the Desert The dipole is a homebrew that someone brought and assembled on site. During these discone ops, I did not utilize any of my antennas either portable or vehicle mounted. I brought the radio and the battery to the tables and canopies set up by the local hams. |
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Lots of Vertical Elements in the Desert. Imagine my van, parked on any of those mining roads you see on the hills in the background. All those vertical objects would help the van, and any vertical antenna elements, disappear. |
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My portable station is described in more detail - Here. When it came turn for me to use the discone, I connected and called CQ ONCE only, on 5 watts. I immediately got replies from K7VS - Oregon K7NAL - Utah and K1SND - Massachusetts This "no-gain" discone, has a fabulously low angle of radiation. |
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