Being bored, result vertical 1.6 to 30 MHz

[W2NAP]

how dose it receive thu all of HF.

[PA5COR]

It's made for mono bander work, 160 meters.

Receptionwise it works as a long wire ;)

The normal Zero Five designs of 45 feet aluminium pole fed with a current 1:4 balun are totally unusable on 160, just usable on 80 and only start to work decently from 40 and up.

Even then they are not the DX gun as claimed, i know, it was one of the first i made here for testing...


The 160 meter 45 foot long antenna does better as the OCF wich was lengthened and at 45 feeet above ground.
Reception on 80 is 3 S points lower as the OCF, but from 40 and up very decent, the 110 meeter long wire acting as just that, a coiled up 110 meter long wire.
Get the DOS based program Helical3.exe, you can design your own, in any length from 20 feet and up.

Worked a Polish ham, mobile, a few Italians, all better on the vertical as the OCF.
If you put an autotuner at the base it will work fine from 40 meters and up, better as the zeo five configurations, as i tried that with my MFJ 993-B at the base of both antenna's.

But with a few sidearms and a linear loaded 80 vertical and a full size 40 meter vertical it will do excellent on 160/80/40, and up.

The soil i live on is very conductive young silty seaclay, in the ccourse over the years i put in 12 groundstakes for grounding, and about 2000 feet of excess copper wire for the ground radials.

Daily contact can be made with a Belgian station both running QRP ( 2 and 5 watts) over 300 miles, he is using a full size 160 vertical, 37 meters high, and me using the 45 footer.
There are no miracle antenna's and no decent all band verticals.
This was made for 160, anything extra was nicee, but not designed for.

By winding an 1/2 wave wire on the vertical the feed point impedance is higher as a 1/4 wave wire, so the loss against ground is a lot lower.
But you still need a good ground, there is no substitute for that...
You can use elevated radials, but here i opted for lots of copper in the ground.
The aluminium wire is 2.8 mm in size just over 1/10th of an inch.
Used here for electric fences, and quite cheap.
And under 1/3 of the weight of copper :D.

Using the same vertical and the folded back 80 meter vertical and full size 40 meter vertical on the same structure and 2 relais you can switch between the 3 verticals, using the same structure and ground.

The lower angle of radiation will add DX to the low bands.
Our plot is just 100 by 30 feet wide....
So up is the only way to go for me.

The mast i made is hinged at the base, i can drop it alone, and erect it alone, changing the configuration as i like.
The 45 foot length is chosen as maximum length without getting the neighbours panties in a wad, certainly if you look at the antenna farm on the roof .... :roll:
Diamond X 510
23 Elements Flexa 70 cm yagi
11 elements Flexa yagi 2 m
5 element 6 meter yagi
OCF FD-4 lengthened for 160 meters 180 feet long at 45 feet above ground. 160 - 10
Rebuild Imax 2000, 15/12/10
Diamond discone for local 2/70 work
Homemade 6 feet long wifi antenna
45 feet long 160 vertical, with in the future 80/40 vertical sections added.
Station:
2 Yaesu Ft 847, Collins filters and modified.
Yaesu FT 100 mobile transciever
MFJ 993-B auto tuner
EQ plus
MD-1 Microphone on boom
Heathkit SB-1000, new RF parts 3-500ZG
Homebrew transistor amp 250 watts, 2 meter
PSU's homebrew 40 to 90 amp
Several switched PSU's SEC 1223
Ameritron ARB 704 switcher for the Amp
Daiwa CN 801 active PEP SWR meter, and a bunch Diamond HF 2/70 meters
Lots of other transcievers, for the van, H.T's and lots of other junk.

Coax Ecoflex 15, extreme low loss 1/2 inch foam.
N connectors throughout the system, PL259 only on HF.
The standard measuring equipment, scope antenna analiser and whatever you need building stuff.
As ex pipefitter/TIG welder a whole bunch of tools, angle grinder welding machine, etc.

And lots of fun building my own stuff.
One reason the masts on the roof are made of 316 stainless steel thickwalled pipes, up through all storms the last 18 years.
And a very uunderstanding wife.... :roll:

[kq9j]

I enjoyed your story and it was very thorough with plenty of detail on construction and performance.

Last fall I put together a 40 meter vertical using 6 of those 4-foot military mast sections. The wire is wound in the same helical fashion. I have worked more DX on that vertical on 40 than I ever had before. And that's with only 4 radials on the ground.

Tomorrow I am finally going to be able to go to my favorite building supply store about an hour's drive from here and among other things I am coming back with a big spool of wire. The back yard will be mowed short and I will lay a lot more radials down.

I put the thing up just for fun and didn't really think it would work that well...but it sure has. I can't wait to see how the improved ground system helps.

[PA5COR]

No substitution for a vertical to work DX or it should be a good beam ;)
With the littlee size plots we have here that is out of the question, so the verticaal it is.

The antenna is a development thingy, i abandoned the paralel dipole idea.
Now there will be a outdoor watertight box, with relais and LC arrangements for 80/40/20 to get the full antenna working on those bands, i tried that out in the program, and that would work better as the paralel dipole idea, wich would detune the others.

Main advantage, i can do all the work at ground level, now i need to find a good size watertight box, a few decent variable C's and the coils can be homebrew.
I could opt for a autotuner, but i want to be able to put the full output of the Heathkit SB-1000 on it, so separate band matching sections will be the way i will follow.
Even without matching sections in place, reception on other bands is fine, and sometimes the difference of making out a station, or not beeing able to hear it.

Whenever i find some spare copper wire it gets buried in the garden and connected to the radial field zigzagging, straight, in any form i can fit it in.
For the shorter bands you might opt for the elevated radials.
The hight is good, 45 feet is manageble, we do live within 25 miles of the North Sea coast, and you can understand we do have some prettty strong winds up here sometimes.
The ground here is young seaclay, so resistance is low already..
But as for any vertical, ground radials are the way to go.
Thanks for the feedback, really appreciated ;)

Now working 6 meter, Ukraine is booming in :D

[PA5COR]

Last addition

Fed now directly with 50 Ohm coax.

SWR is 1: 1.5 as expected the ground losses add a better picture as it should be.

Directly fed and resonant on 1.850 mHz it is 1/2 to 1 S point better as the OCF.

As it is now, it is a monobander for 160 meter, after the winter period and trying a compare with DX with the ocf antennna, i'll decide to make it into a 60 feet mulltiband antenna fed with a 1:4 Unun.

I tried it with the 45 feet length, and 1:4 UNun, but on 160 and 80 it was disappointing, on 40 and 30 and 20 quite good.

[PA5COR]

Changed the 160 meter vertical.
Added 2 wires at the top, each 40 feet long 180 degrees from eachother, had to shorten the helical section in windings, more spacing and less windings of course.
Look at it as a helically wound vertically fed T antenna against ground ;) ( getting a headache here )

Back to resonance at 1850, added some left over copper wire as RF ground, now about 1000 feet total, different lengths and most within the 100 x 25 feet plot of land the house is on, and 4 wires at the top ends going away from that as an H , the antenna is roughly in the middle of that.

Looking good, less losses through the smaller numbers of helical windings, ( about half of the original) the current is getting up higher from the ground.
The vertical section is 13.6 meters high, or 45 feet helically wound ALU wire 2.8 mm ( 0.11 inch) about 40 meters in length in a wide spaced helical pattern, spacing at the bottom is larger as higher up.

To my surprise the antenna now also works on 40 meters....??? direct fed with 1:1 unun with coax at the bottom of the vertical.
Tested with 100 - 1000 watts here, no RF problems here. ( Heathkit SB-1000 new 3-500ZG tube.

Hope we get some nice spring weather introducing an auto tuner at the feedpoint, lets see what that does.

[N9FE]

http://www.smeter.net/slc/slc.php Check your results here

[PA5COR]

Useful link already in the favorites as the Dutch and Swiss remote receivers.

Already worked Canada and the US on 160 with it, it might not be the best antenna, but for the space i have it does work.

Ogling a tree 100 feet away, municipally owned, but a thin grey wire......Inverted L ?

[N9FE]

They will NEVER know... Shhhh

[PA5COR]

Since the weather was good the last weeks i have spend some considerable time with my 50 foot mast on which the helical 160 meter antenna was made.

I took the helical down, went to an inverted V antenna, 1/4 wave 50 foot vertical, the rest sideways to the streetlantern at 21 feet high.
Then i made the inverted L 3/8 and used a sturdy variable C to tune it back to the 1850 KHz we normally operate.
The radial field stayed the same, now 1400 feet of wire in the ground, and several earth points 10+ feet deep copper stakes.

The results were all down from the helically fed T antenna...

So, down the mast went today, the old helical coil was put back on, and the top capacity is 2 x 6 meters ( 20 feet) of copper wire with insulation.
Sloping down from 50 feet at the top, back to about 35 feet above ground, something like the umbrella antenna.

Results, 2 dB gain more as the inverted L antenna which was maximised in it's working.
Running the SB-1000 from Heathkit, the 1000 watts didn't let the televisions, or other consumer electronics budge, no interference whatso ever.

Worked in daytime some stations including my friends which i use for comparison of the antenna's and all confirmed the helical was minimum 2 dB up.

The analizer did show some good results.
Rs 50 Xs 10 Swr 1.4, from 1810 Swr 2.0, 1891 again 2.0.
Will take some more pictures.
Next: Magnetic loop antenna 12 feet from copperpipe octagonal for 160....

Will keep you informed of my d*cking around...;)