Voltage Probe Antenna - Part 2

This weekend saw a family visit (wife, grown-up children, and in-laws) trekking across the Pennines to the Sunderland Air Show, and a Jolly Good Day Out was had by all.
As with the Windermere Air Show we attended a couple of years ago, the only flying Avro Vulcan XH558 once again stole the show.  What a stunning aircraft, and what an impressive noise!

A fly-past with the bomb bay open

Today, in between watching the Hungarian Grand Prix and listening to the Second Test against India at Trent Bridge, I managed to get the prototype Voltage Probe Antenna completed and fired up for a quick test.

It certainly works, and in the brief period of time I had to test it before I packed up for the weekend, I had received amateur signals at good strength on all bands from 160m to 15m ,with the exception of 60m.

First VPA lash-up

I also had broadcast signals on Long Wave and Medium Wave at decent strength.  Next week I hope to carry out a more extensive evaluation, and naturally I will probably report back here.

This first version doesn't have the required circuitry to be powered from the output coax cable, this will follow in due course, no doubt.