Thinking about getting this

[N2CHX]

"I'm going to put up a vertical for 20 and possibly for 30."
As a broadcast engineer you know the advantages of a half wave vertical. You have three choices, a dipole that requires neither a tuner nor radials, an end fed that requires both and a grounded vertical folded monopole that again requires both. The grounded folded monopole if you've been following my recommendations is an electrical half wave a tad shorter than a quarter wave high so that's the way to go if you lack a high support or room for guys.

Room for guys... and I had to say that to a YL??? EEK!

Hey, if you have the formula for that one please pass it along. I saw it in the back of an old Collins broadcast transmitter catalog a long time ago but that's another thing that went bye bye when I lost my tech library and a bunch of other irreplaceable stuff in a flood... RATS! (They swam for their lives...)

I have very limited room for anything here. The verticals will be 1/4 wave. I definitely have no room for a dipole. I had one for 30 meters but it required an extraordinary amount of support to wrap it around the house and under the power lines and it did not perform that well. The verticals I can run up near the side of the house and I have plenty of stuff to use as ground. So verticals it is. If I had trees in the front yard I could run a dipole from the front yard, over the house to one of the trees in the back, but unfortunately that's not an option. A properly cut vertical won't need a tuner at least on the band it's designed for, but even if it does, that doesn't bother me. Most of my antenna's have required a tuner and really there is very little loss from using a tuner.

[N2CHX]

Cool.

Whattarya gonna use for a transmitter?

Edit:

OK, the linkies were confusing, I presume you mean this kit:

http://fivedash.com/index.php?main_p...&products_id=7

SoftRock RXTX Ensemble Transceiver Kit

Yup, that's the one!

[N2CHX]

Vertical dipole. I like my GAP antennas, quite a bit. Need to put 'em back up.

Home brew is easy-peasy on higher frequencies. Use yer hat.



http://users.skynet.be/on4bai/VDIPHAT/4BAIVHAT_bis.htm

Wish I had room for that. I'm just going to have a simple vertical. Some top-loading may be involved though.

[mw0uzo]

I was looking at this same kit last night and asked a question about it. Tell me about the VFO. It says they don't supply the parts for a VFO but it comes with a circuit board for it. I'm wondering how hard the parts are to find. Of course, I will likely hack whatever I get to pieces and make it multiband. If I could do 20, 30 and 40 I'd be tickled.

I messed around with some fixed capacitance on top of 5 or 6 varicaps to get the tuning range I wanted, then the 10 turn resistor connects across a 9V supply on the main board. It was a PITA, to get the whole band turned out to be quite unstable, so had to take one or two varicaps off to regain stability and lose the CW portion of the band. Really, the FLL and VFO should be binned and a DDS used to tune.

Given the choice again I would go for a multiband SDR transceiver kit with a suitable amplifier.

[W3WN]

I have very limited room for anything here. The verticals will be 1/4 wave. I definitely have no room for a dipole. I had one for 30 meters but it required an extraordinary amount of support to wrap it around the house and under the power lines and it did not perform that well. The verticals I can run up near the side of the house and I have plenty of stuff to use as ground. So verticals it is. If I had trees in the front yard I could run a dipole from the front yard, over the house to one of the trees in the back, but unfortunately that's not an option. A properly cut vertical won't need a tuner at least on the band it's designed for, but even if it does, that doesn't bother me. Most of my antenna's have required a tuner and really there is very little loss from using a tuner.

Do you have room for a flag pole in your front yard?

20 feet of aluminum tubing... some of the surplus tent/camo support poles that are floating around hamfests for a couple of bucks each. Fed at the base, a dozen radials, and voila! with the use of the tuner, should load quite well on 20, 30 & 40 (and some other bands as well)

[N2CHX]

Do you have room for a flag pole in your front yard?

20 feet of aluminum tubing... some of the surplus tent/camo support poles that are floating around hamfests for a couple of bucks each. Fed at the base, a dozen radials, and voila! with the use of the tuner, should load quite well on 20, 30 & 40 (and some other bands as well)

Probably not feasible at this moment, but we have been talking about doing landscaping next year that may include a flagpole and a small pond with a waterfall. If we do that, then I will probably work the flagpole into being an antenna as well.

[N2CHX]

I gotta admit, I am tickled that I will be back on HF. I really like QRP and I really like digital modes, so this is gonna be fun.

[W3WN]

Probably not feasible at this moment, but we have been talking about doing landscaping next year that may include a flagpole and a small pond with a waterfall. If we do that, then I will probably work the flagpole into being an antenna as well.

Understood.

Some of the RV places sell portable fiberglass flag poles, that go up to about 24 feet in height. They collapse into about 5 or 6 smaller segments (one inside the other) which brings the net length for transport down to about 4 to 5 feet, depending on the brand. That's what we have in front of the house at the moment.

I mention this because they are hollow, and it is VERY easy to run a wire right up the inside.

New they're around $50 -60, but I see them occasionally at garage sales for as low as $5 - 10.

Just food for thought.

[NQ6U]

Harbor Freight sells a telescoping 20' aluminum flag pole. Regular price is around $50 but it frequently goes on sale.

[WØTKX]

I wanna say NEENER NEENER to ya on PSK.