I’ve enjoyed building the Cobwebb antenna and thought I’d do a little bit of modelling to investigate the design in a little more detail. After downloading a copy on MMANA-GAL I started to get to grips with it. Well I say get to grips with it, it was more like a wrestling match where the result was pretty much pre-determined. Guess who won?
Modelling the Cobwebb antenna is a little more complicated than you may imagine. The construction is based around twin cables and basically the effect of having 2 wires close together gives MMANA-GAL a bit of a headache.
I had to laugh as even I can get the SWR a little lower than that!
Seriously though the modelling package is similar to the EZNEC flavour which I have had a play with in the past and its something I would like to get my hands a bit more dirty with in the future. My Sotabeams MFD is looking a little tatty after some heavy use last year and I’d quite like to make up a rucksack antenna that fits my pack and that doesn’t get blown over in the strong winds we get here on the fell tops in Cumbria.
What is good about all these mistakes and mishaps is that they are free in terms of money, they only cost a bit of time and without this learning I doubt I would still be that interested in ham radio. There are of course frustrations but these are far outweighed by the successes. I can’t thank the dedicated and talented individuals enough who put out the various pieces of software that allow us to tinker effectively for nothing.
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