McDuory Outdoor / Attic Antenna Review

Make: McDuory (www.mcduory.com)

Model: UHD-3968

Type: LPDA (Log Periodic Dipole Array (staggered))

Element Type: Split 1/2 wave resonant elements (nominal 72 ohm impedance)

Impedance: 75 ohms direct feed

Balun: Not included, use snap on ferrite

Covers:

• VHF Channels 7 - 13 (170 - 230 MHz)
• UHF Channels 14 - 79 (470 - 860 MHz)
• Pan American TV Frequencies

Buy from Amazon ($37 17-Mar-25) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JMDZZWM 

Installation

Notes

• Used Penetrox joint compound -
• Grease boom brackets (Booms form the feed/phase line)
• Element ends - where the longer elements are pushed into the brackets
• Screws - remove, apply some penetrox, gentle 1/4 turn once slack is taken up
• Lanocote around F connector and connection to boom, around black element brackets / boom to weather proof from rain/water
• Added snap on ferrite clamps (Fit RG-6) to form a 1:1 balun (Isolate coax shield outer)
• Used https://otadtv.com/tvtower/ to locate local stations , and compass to pick average direction / best average for all stations.
• The included RG-6 is probably "OK", they do include fitted F connectors with drip covers. Since the coax is no-name-band its likely low quality, may need to upgrade to name brand quality RG-6 if there are signal level problems.
• The antenna will last much longer (years)
• Mine is mounted under a porch where it is also out of the rain
• Attic installation would also be preferred if it works
• Dual boom LPDA is a good tried and true electrical and mechanical design, directional, broad band, with direct match for coax

On Air Test / Performance

Found all local TV stations (digital) between channels 7 and 26 up-to 25 miles away. Enough signal to run 3 to 4 TVs with a splitter and quality RG-6. All the usual suspects, ABC, CBS, Fox, PBS, NBC etc. The HD channels look great (HD can be better than you think!).

Conclusions 

For the price the materials are of good (light duty) quality, with all mounting hardware supplied.

Since it uses resonant 1/2 wavelength elements it is fairly compact for a VHF high band + UHF TV antenna.

It may not fare well in salt air or humid wet climates,  Better suited to attic or semi protected installation (out of the rain). With Penetrox and Lanocote (as appropriate) it should do well for a number of years.

An HD version using better materials for 2x the price, water-proofing, and a balun would be a welcome option.

Cebik Pages Update

https://www.antenna2.net/cebik/

As noted, things have been tidied and improved, updated to syntax correct HTML with a single CSS file, broken links fixed, some missing content found and added back in. A useful addition is the topics index which makes it easy to find all related pages on a subject, and see them all listed in one place.

I started working on this a few weeks ago when I learned that ON5AU who hosted the only known complete copy had become SK.

After I started looking at the Cebik pages, one thing lead to another, and the end result was significant update which I think was needed considering how useful this is to many.

Happy Holidays!

18 / December / 2024 Update

Now available on GitHub:

• https://github.com/antenna2

Clone, fork, or download ZIP archive from Green code button.

Happy Holidays!

MacLoggerDX Logs Backup Script

MLDX-Backup is a backup script I wrote for MacLoggerDX.

• It gracefully closes MLDX.
• Creates tgz archive (gzipped tar file).
• Excludes .DS_Store, debug files, QSL card images, ADIF conformations log.
• Keeps the last five backups (removes oldest when new backup is created).

Also includes information on how to manage things with iCloud drive Documents and Desktop syncing if used.

JS8Call Band Hopping Script

Recently someone asked on the JS8Call group about band hopping or cycling through several bands on a 10 minute cycle.

Jordan the author of JS8Call suggested using the API to do this.

I decided to see what was around and found this well documented js8net API library, with that I was able to interact with the API from the command line, and could read and set the frequency.

Python is not something I'm familiar with, so I used ChatGPT to help me write a python script that would cycle through a list of frequencies changing to the next one every few minutes.

The result was JS8BandHop, a fairly simple Python script.

How to build WSJT-X from source on macOS

Compile WSJT-X on Mac.

Works on my spare Late 2014 5K iMac running Big Sur 11.7.10 with Xcode 13.2.1.

Information was passed onto me from AA5SH - Notes on Building WSJT-X on my Mac. The main difference is this guide uses current stable release of Hamlib (4.5.5) from their Github repo.

The steps create a directory called /Users/<username>/wsjtx-build, with a sub-directory each for Hamlib and WSJT-X source code and building.

A detailed guide of how I have my rig control, logging, and digi mode apps configured is at:

https://lonneys-notebook.blogspot.com/2023/06/macloggerdx-flrig-with-wsjt-x-fldigi.html

Xcode

Xcode can be downloaded from the App Store, for older versions of macOS it can be downloaded from https://developer.apple.com/xcode/resources/ > Additional downloads > Search for the version number.

Supported version of Xcode for a given version of macOS see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode.

There are two parts to install Xcode one is just to install from the App Store or download from the Apple developer site, and then also from the command line run the following command:

xcode-select --install

Agree to the Xcode license agreement:

sudo xcodebuild -license

CMake

Download the latest CMake universal from http://www.cmake.org/download/

Open the DMG then drag and drop the application bundle onto the supplied /Applications link.

To complete the install process run:

sudo "/Applications/CMake.app/Contents/MacOS/cmake" --install

Homebrew

Install Homebrew from https://brew.sh/ 

Run the two commands shown at competition to add it to the path.

Install gcc@9:

brew install gcc@9

Mac Ports

Install Mac Ports from https://www.macports.org/

Quit and re-open terminal after installing. 

Install the required ports, answer yes to dependancies or use port -N (non interactive):

sudo port install autoconf

sudo port install automake

sudo port install libtool

sudo port install pkgconfig

sudo port install texinfo

sudo port install fftw-3-single +gcc9

sudo port install asciidoc

sudo port install asciidoctor

sudo port install libusb-devel

sudo port install boost

sudo port install qt5

sudo port install qt5-qtmultimedia

sudo port install qt5-qtwebsockets

Build Hamlib

https://hamlib.github.io 

https://github.com/Hamlib/Hamlib

This only needs to be done once.

Using the current stable release, 4.5.5 at this time.

mkdir -p ~/wsjtx-build/hamlib-prefix/build

cd ~/wsjtx-build/hamlib-prefix

git clone --depth 1 --branch 4.5.5 https://github.com/Hamlib/Hamlib.git src

cd src

./bootstrap

cd ../build

../src/configure \

   --enable-static \

   --disable-shared \

   --disable-winradio \

   --prefix=$HOME/wsjtx-build/hamlib-prefix \

   CFLAGS="-g -O2 -mmacosx-version-min=10.7 -I/opt/local/include" \

   LIBUSB_LIBS="-L/opt/local/lib -lusb-1.0"

make

make install-strip

If make install-strip fails, run make install

Build WSJT-X

Download source code tarball (.tgz) from:

WSJT-X https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/wsjtx.html

WSJT-X Improved https://wsjt-x-improved.sourceforge.io

Note: WSJT-X Improved includes additional features (some later make it into regular WSJT-X), and alternate layouts.

Extract the tarball file, you should see a folder named wsjtx-<version number>.

Open the src folder with-in this and extract wsjtx.tgz, this is the source code.

mkdir -p ~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix/src

mkdir -p ~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix/build

Copy the source code with in the expanded wsjtx folder into ~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix/src

cd ~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix/build

FC=/usr/local/Cellar/gcc@9/9.5.0/bin/gfortran-9 \

   cmake \

   -D CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/opt/local/libexec/qt5;~/wsjtx-build/hamlib-prefix;/opt/local" \

   -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix \

   -D CMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX12.1.sdk/ \

   ~/wsjtx-build/wsjtx-prefix/src

Substitute the Mac OS X SDK version you have installed in the above command if you have a different version.

cmake --build .

cmake --build . --target install # Builds wsjt-x application bundle 

cmake --build . --target package # Builds .dmg file in build directory

Other Info

Notes on Building JTDX on Mac - AA5SH.

How to Build WSJT-X on the Apple M1.

Misc Notes

Find QT version (installed via Mac Ports): /opt/local/libexec/qt5/bin/qmake -v

Build JS8Call on macOS

https://github.com/bazineta/js8call/blob/js8call/README.md#compiling-on-osx

Not tried it my self yet.