Chameleon NVIS Tested - How Well Does it Work?

[@W6IWN_Radio]

Thanks for taking the time to make this NVIS demo, Billy.

[@ModernHam]

Glad you liked it!

[@MrStanwyck]

Great video. I’m waiting for my Chameleon NVIS to be delivered. Looking forward to trying it out. Bill, KC2KNA

[@darrinpearce9780]

Just spent 4 days in a valley in our alpine region. Ran a 40M EFHW at about 1.8metres above the ground in a NVIS config and had reliable comms over a couple of hundred miles and was able to send Winlink email, JS8 and FT8 from that location. Was running a FT817 at 5watts.

[@ModernHam]

Nice! It feels good to be able to communicate with the people you need on such low power.

[@richerich853]

FYI tip: use a beach umbrella screw in ground spike. Then you can set it up without help. I have a metal one it works great for the terrain in Kentucky.

[@ModernHam]

@@richerich853 great tip. I'll have to try that out. Thanks!

[@YllaStar95970]

Good call for a spiral bound laminated instruction. For a nice premium product, l would consider this a really nice personal touch, and would therefore encourage me to look a lot closer at Chameleon in the future.👍

[@grinch45]

In the 80s we were comunicating NVIS but it did not have a name and little written about it. There was a lot of excuse making for not communication by always blaming the skip zone. It was in 1986, David Fieldler wrote an article for the US Army Communicator magazine called skip the skip zone. Did I see this article and improve my work, no as distribution of that magazine was limited to the Brigade Commander and the CSM and would they ever notice and bring it over to my platoon? Another no but as internet caught on in the 90s, we finally found out what we were doing wrong.

[@ModernHam]

@@grinch45 wow that's interesting. Thanks for sharing! I didn't realize it took so long.

[@ve3cwq47]

It doesn't make sense to me to try to truly operate NVIS, unless both stations antennas are similarly configured for NVIS. It's just happenstance if you are able to communicate with another station that falls within what would be considered as the NVIS "regional" range, if that station is set up for DX. Your station antenna is set up to take advantage of the radio waves traveling near vertically upwards into the ionosphere and then refracted back down roughly in the area between ground wave and sky wave coverage. But if the other station isn't configured for NVIS, then in theory, their signal should be refracted much further away. In the military, we would experiment with NVIS, with both stations using similarly configured antennas and attempting to establish reliable communications in the 150 to 200 klick range.

[@ModernHam]

Right, so if you are operating NVIS, you are communicating with a purpose. It's likely the people you want to talk to are doing similar. You don't want to talk to the guy setup/trying to do DX. You are going to want to talk to other NVIS operators who are operating in support of whatever event is happening.

[@bruehlt]

That antenna doesn't use an efficient transformer design. It uses a lossy, wideband transformer. Get something that uses a 49:1 transformer, that is efficient. Chameleon charges a lot of money for their gear, and you can find much better antennas for much less.

[@ModernHam]

It's lossy for some frequencies because it's built for wideband use. I did mention in the video that if it's 300+ miles away or DX you are attempting, this isn't the antenna for you. Typically when operating in support of a disaster, you won't be using a specific ham band or frequency. You will be using some type of ALE (where you hop many bands), often outside of the ham bands (such as MARS) and are targeting a regional location, and need that wide-band ability. There are cheaper antennas out there, but are they built for emcomm, Omnidirectional NVIS, can deploy with a single support, and capable of wideband use with MARS, First responders for interoperability? Thais what chameleon is selling here. I tried to drive that point in the video, but maybe I didn't hit it hard enough.

[@bruehlt]

@@ModernHam for emcomm - you want all of your power getting out, not generating heat, which is what this does.

[@lyledal]

The name is French and when pronounced "properly" it rhymes with Renoir. My family says it like Len-ore. 😄

[@ModernHam]

@@lyledal thanks! I'll remember it next time!