Being bored, result vertical 1.6 to 30 MHz

[W4RLR]

All those pictures not only give me antenna envy, but make me homesick for The Netherlands. Oh to be back in that little farm house in Terschuur...

[PA5COR]

Come back, all is forgiven

My neighbours are quite used to see the most strange contraptions pop up here as antenna for testing.
Since the EEC Law protects my rights as ham to put up antenna's we don't have CCR's and the like.
Any clausule that prohibits masts and antenna's is automatically void.
There are rulrs in place, but i can pretty well put up anything i like.
Since i'm an antenna nut, and my MFJ 269 analizer has to be put to good use, i'll stick to it

As i showed, with cheap and cheerfull stuff you can make your own effective antenna's.
Even living on a small city lot...

Next project, how to make a variable C with unetched PCB for 15 KV, i can buy a vacuum C but this is much more fun to do, and i have lots of nice square meters unetched pcb and teflon strips to make someting from that, prefferably motor driven if the pcb variable C is working.
My attick is 30 feet long, 15 feet high, and 25 feet wide, that should take a decent size loop.

I'll first make a smaller loop for testing purposes, then if i like the results, will go for the big one.
Both should handle the full output of the Heathkit SB 1000.

[al2n]

A great read and a good job on the antenna.

I am starting to plan my antenna for the new QTH and am mulling over a vertical. This thread gave me some great ideas.

[PA5COR]

Verticals are good for dx, not so good for local ragchewing.
Multiband verticals are always a compromise on most bands..
Full size loops ( 160 or 80 meters) will be multiband use, give good gain and are relative noisefree.
My OCF is just 55 meters long, originally made for 80 and up, added a coil ( 180 micro H and 30 feet of wire) to let it resonate on 160.
Magnetic loops can be costly ( copper tubing, Vacuum C) but if chosen right size, will really perform.

Verticals are noisy in recieve, if you live in a rural buildt up area, be prepared for noise..., get a magnetic loop or full size loop for recieve up.
Ladder line fed dipoles are better for noise as my OCF for 160- 10 and also multiband.
Decissions, decissions..
All powerlines here are burried, except for the 300 and 500 KV lines, in the city you won't find overhead powerlines here.
An inverted L will give dx as well good local signal, having vertical and horizontal components in the transmitted signal.

For verticals and inverted L's a good ground is making or breaking the antenna performance.
Hope you get something up that really works for you.
It is not the transciever or P.A. that does the job, it is the antenna system that does the job.
;)

[PA5COR]

Latest loop.
11 feet diameter, 41meters 3 mm aluwire and 45 pF condenser value for 1.850.
Was 7 dB better as the one turn loop.

Project still going on, this was just one version with coaxial loop for coupling, another one with triangular wire worked fine also, no piccie of that one.

[PA5COR]

New step in the vertical.

A friend offered to produce from titanium/aluminium sections of tubing, the same material as Titanex uses, of 7 feet long.

The base is 60 mm tubing the top 3/8 inch.
Full size 80 meter vertical, and the wire will be the inverted L part of the 160 meter section.

The trap is homebrew, with RG 58 coax as C, inside the coil form, dipped to frequency.
Height about 20 meters, made the isolator of good quality insulator.

Just need some good UV resistant guying wire and then it will take the place of the helical vertical.

[PA5COR]

It's done.

Everyone might have asked him/herself why i have been so quiet on the boards.
partly because i lost interest in politics ( temporarely) and because i had the annually urge to build antenna's again.

The new improved inverted L is up, the vertical part is 19.85 meters high, the rest goes off to the front of the house to the lantern post and then 3 meters in a 80 degree corner to another hang up point.

SWR 1.4, 36 Ohms so need some LC network to make the feedpoint match perfectly to the inverted L

I ditched the 80/160 meter idea, and went back to the monobander idea.

Reports are about 1 S point better in europe aas the old one, give or take conditions.
What i did notice compared to the helically wound antenna is that the angle of radiation is much lower, let's see how that works out...

[PA5COR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBnPwIaZ-yg

PA7AVS on his radio talking to our group including me in his farm tractor
I was working on my invertel L as on the oictures above
Calls PA7AVS, PA3BUF, PA5COR, PA5SVD, PA3NGK.
His little transciever went in overdrive with my signal, he is just 10 km's away from me, so his front end overloads.

;)

[PA5COR]

Did some work on the inverted L antenna.
The 11 x 2 meter sections were with force 8 gale too whimsy in my view.
So, from 45 mm back to 20 mm i opted for new tubing, 10 feet long so that the top section went from 20 to 22 meters (73 feet) and shortened the horizontal section to get back the resonance at 1.850 MHz.

Initial reports on the groundwave 30 - 80 km's away, 2 dB more signal, will take a few weeks to see how it handles the other skywave propagation.
We have a group Dutch and UK stations, including Brian M3LLU who regularly chat and report back.

And no, i'm not going higher, it is a very large antenna between the houses... sticking out like a sore thumb.
The house is 9 meters high, it is 13 meters over that...

[PA5COR]

Next project, since the 77 foot high vertical L antenna is ready, the EWE antenna.
Here the 1:9 unun.
And the picture of the inverted L.