Winding the coil

Well, it was more of a hassle than I thought. The wire has springy tendencies and after I winded up almost 3/4, it sprang off the coil and tangled all together. Fortunately, I had enough wire left to try again. I laid out the wire on my yard to remove any coilings and windings. It helped a lot to remove out the tension from the winded up wire. 

How to tap the coil was the most headache causing topic. I wanted to make those clips with hooks like buddipole, but I don’t have the tools for that. In the end, I decided to use rings, that are fastened to the coil via 2 plastic screws and one metal screw, which is the actual tapping point for a crocodile clamp. Currently, I am printing 4 additional rings. 80/40/20/15m is the intention. 

The wiring at the bottom was fiddly because I left out a way to less space for working. So I had to use a drill and some improvisation to get everything right. 

Also the method of fastening the wire start and end is ugly as hell. I need a nicer method to hide this mess in the inner part of the housing.

Anyway, the coil is done. Printing some additional rings and getting that counterpoise wire ready. Still have to figure out the lengths of the counterpoise.