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Radio => Antennas => Topic started by: asatrur on January 16, 2014, 07:41:48 PM
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I am looking for some advice in antenna ideas. Here are the details, I am looking for antenna that will get me as much HF range as possible with 1 antenna. I have a 20m dipole yet to be put up and a 3 band cushman vertical right now.
Here are the dimensions of what I have
Rect lot 140E-W and 50N-S
1 3 story house 43 E-W and 30 N-S
1 garage 23' W of the house
1 major tree between the H and G on the N property line, but no others.
The currrent cushcraft is on a pole on the E side of the garage.
Without any towers to begin with, does any have any ideas? I am not a real DXer, but enjoy the far off contact, especially from a prepping aspect.
Thanks,
Asa
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Build yourself an 80 Meter Wire Dipole and use a 4:1 Balun in the Center. Put up a Pole to hold the Balun in the center of your Lot, as high as you can get it, and then let the ends droop down to 15 Feet out at the Property Lines. You can use regular 14 Gauge Stranded Wire, as it will not stretch enough to cause you any issues. Then get yourself a Good MANUAL Tuner and use that to tune all the other Bands. I have used an 80 Meter on HF for decades, here in alaska and have very good contacts. Mine is 60Ft and strung between a tower and a Tree. Just say'en Bruce in alaska AL7AQ.....
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Anything but an antenna matched to the operating frequency is a compromise antenna. I've had a bit of luck using a G5RV at home and a Chameleon portable. It sounds as if you have enough space for the G5RV on your lot. I gave my neighbor my first antenna, a G5RV Mini. He makes tons of contact across the bands from 40 to 10 meters.
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I'm running an MFJ 80/40 meter trap dipole strung as an inverted V. The center support is a 20' piece of PVC (dunno... 2.5" diameter? stiff enough when guyed with paracord). The ends are about 5' off the ground. The whole thing is about 80' long. Something like this might fit your lot. The advantage to the trap 80/40 is that it gives most of an 80's performance in not much more length than a 40.
Without a tuner, it covers the 40 meter band completely, and also covers the 80 meter general phone band. (I still use the radio's internal tuner to clean up the band ends a little and to spare the finals from grief.) It gives good coverage out to 300 miles, frequently can go to 400 miles. That's all the range I really need for my prepping end of things, anything else is for fun. Being so low to the ground, it mostly exploits NVIS and is more-or-less omnidirectional, with a slight enhancement broadside.
After that, I've got a 20m inverted V and an a99 vertical to handle 10m & the dread CB. You can squeeze your 20 in somewhere, anywhere, at the other end of the lot maybe.
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one of my friends made one of these
http://www.hlmagneticloopantennas.com/ (http://www.hlmagneticloopantennas.com/)
and it works better than many wire antennas I have seen,
as it has very narrow bandwidth it has no noise
by the way, tilt it 45degrees to the horizon for best performance, and not straight up as pictured (you only need one antenna rotor)
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Also check
www.bluecollarants.com (http://www.bluecollarants.com)
I have serial number 001 set up for 20 meters
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I'm happy with my antenna. It's a HiQ Piranha vertical.
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Asa,
I have a friend in town that recently built a multi band Hex Beam antenna. It's like an umbrella on its back, directional, with a little gain. Works well on his residential lot and is balanced enough to use a standard rotor. Works much better than the old wire antenna. He is still tickled pink over it.
-Cindy
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You might want to get something that will offer you a lot of possibilities and options. If you're looking at going toward the prepping aspect of the emergency communication you'll need an antenna that you can carry everywhere and that you'll be able to use under most circumstances.
Look at what the army or the special ops are doing all over the world. They're a good example of what "prepping" might be while adapting yourself to a new situation is the core of the success. Good communication doesn't mean S9 +30 all the time. Good communication mean that you need to be able to pass or receive some information or a message anywhere and as fast as possible. So is you can pass a message with a 45 or 55 report then it's a success. Remember that you've to compose with your environment to make it work. So forget about antenna that need to be played with sliding coils, jumpers or plugs. You need something that you'll install and that will work immediately and under any type of weather conditions. You need a broadband or multiband antenna.
Look what happen recently on the East Coast and the Midwest of the United-States. They got snow like nobody business this year! Imagine going in your yard to play with coil jumpers and retractable antenna whips while you have a couple of feet of snow and the wet snow or the rain detuning your coil all the time.
You might want to look at the EMCOMM II for your base station needs and maybe at the new CHA TD that Chameleon Antenna just released recently. It's the closest thing that I know of emergency/prepping communication.
CHA TD
http://chameleonantenna.com/PORTABLE%20ANTENNA/CHA%20TD/CHA%20TD.html
(http://chameleonantenna.com/PORTABLE%20ANTENNA/CHA%20TD/CHA%20TD.html)
PDF
http://chameleonantenna.com/resources/Chameleon_Antenna_TD.pdf (http://chameleonantenna.com/resources/Chameleon_Antenna_TD.pdf)
-CC
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You might want to look at the EMCOMM II for your base station needs and maybe at the new CHA TD that Chameleon Antenna just released recently. It's the closest thing that I know of emergency/prepping communication.
CHA TD
http://chameleonantenna.com/PORTABLE%20ANTENNA/CHA%20TD/CHA%20TD.html
(http://chameleonantenna.com/PORTABLE%20ANTENNA/CHA%20TD/CHA%20TD.html)
PDF
http://chameleonantenna.com/resources/Chameleon_Antenna_TD.pdf (http://chameleonantenna.com/resources/Chameleon_Antenna_TD.pdf)
-CC
That's a cool product but the price tag....holy cats!
Three-hundred bucks for what is really just a glorified dipole in a MOLLE bag. Reading the fine print, the "Tactical Dipole" is an add-on to the EMCOMM-II. So to get the full use of the setup you need to lay out $370 +shipping and buy both. :o
There seems to be a trend where all a business has to do is call something "tactical" and the customers will cheerfully pay three times as much as the thing is really worth.
I gotta find a way to cash in on this myself.
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Tevin,
Well when you start to look behind the price tag and think about all the research & development time invested, the prototyping, the materials, the special equipments and the tooling that was required to achieve that you'll see that the price is pretty much right!
I know antenna building myself and manufacturing in general and building something like that with about the same quality, materials and everything, would probably cost me close to $400 to $500. On top of that they've employees and engineers to pay, rent, electricity, insurance, marketing, shipping, accountant and a ton of other things that I don't know about. If they've dealers then the price need to be high enough for the dealers to make a profit too.
Just the swager used to crimp copper sleeve which they seem to use to create loop at the end of each wire cost brand new between $200 to $400+ each. The copper clad iron wire will probably cost $0.25 to $0.30 per foot because we don't buy in large quantity like they probably do. So for 170' of wire it will cost you $45+. They're using stainless steel carabiner at probably $6 each so this is another $30. The resistor probably cost about $35 to $40 each to manufacture so another $80. The coax cable will probably cost $35 to $40 depending of the component quality. That kind of bag is about $40. The wire winder are probably $5 or $6 each... When you add all that you're getting pretty close to $500 and you haven't added the EMCOMM-II yet!
I think that we've been spoiled during the last decades by Chinese junk and when we see the real cost of an actual quality product we got all surprised. But that's the real cost of something manufactured in USA.
I guess that you pay for what you get. I already own few antennas from those people and they are not the regular stuff that you'll see online and/or made in China. I've one of their HYBRID-MINI and the unit is entirely machined from aluminum and some very hard polymer. You really need to feel it in your hand to understand what it is.
I think that we can have the same comparison with computer. I've been using PC since 1993 and since about 6 years ago I switched to Mac. Yes it is more expansive but I'll tell you that I will never go back to PC EVER!!! You simply have to try it yourself to understand and feel it by yourself. Everything is better on a Mac than a PC.
-CC
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I think that we can have the same comparison with computer. I've been using PC since 1993 and since about 6 years ago I switched to Mac. Yes it is more expansive but I'll tell you that I will never go back to PC EVER!!! You simply have to try it yourself to understand and feel it by yourself. Everything is better on a Mac than a PC.
-CC
CC
Sorry to hear about you slipping into the "dark side" :(
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and IF you need to run WinDoZZ (or just about any other OS) you can run it on a Virtual Machine, from inside MacOSX.... Easy Piezy... Just Say'en....
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Ya know, when you build a rifle you buy the rifle and then spend that amount again on the glass. HF antennae are about the same.. Just my observation.
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Ya know, when you build a rifle you buy the rifle and then spend that amount again on the glass. HF antennae are about the same.. Just my observation.
Absolutely! A good glass worth about the same thing than the rifle. What's the point of having a good AR-15 LMT MRP CQB 16 if you're to use with a crappy UTG red dot! You put something like a ACOG or an AimPoint!
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Rebooting this based on a new situation.
I have moved my shack to on the 2nd floor of our house, so I looking at ways to mount my mag mount 2M antenna. before, I ran a cable out the window to where it was sitting on a table. Now out the nearest window is something like 20 feet of the deck. I am consider building a small pedestal out of treated wood and mounting to the side of the house right outside the house. There are trees, my soon to be tri-band pole, etc. that are much higher than this, so I am not too worried about lighting strikes.
Ideas?
Thanks,
Asa
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Rebooting this based on a new situation.
I have moved my shack to on the 2nd floor of our house, so I looking at ways to mount my mag mount 2M antenna. before, I ran a cable out the window to where it was sitting on a table. Now out the nearest window is something like 20 feet of the deck. I am consider building a small pedestal out of treated wood and mounting to the side of the house right outside the house. There are trees, my soon to be tri-band pole, etc. that are much higher than this, so I am not too worried about lighting strikes.
Ideas?
Thanks,
Asa
You are going to need something to serve as a ground plane with the mag mount. You might get away with steel gutters if you have them, but I would not count on it. (A steel roof could be very good.) I'll leave it at that for now, there are better ideas out there that someone else knows.
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ghrit is 100% correct. A mag mount antenna sitting on a wood pedestal is literally only half an antenna.
If the cable will reach from your shack down to where you park your car, then stick it on the car. From a functionality standpoint, having a proper ground plane more than offsets the lower elevation.
You can get nice base antennas that have a ground already on them (or are designed to run without) for less than $100.
(You're an Extra, you should know this stuff already ;) )
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I should have been clear, I would cover the platform with sheet metal, so the magnet has a purchase point and hence the ground plane on it.
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Or you could go with some J-pole / Slim Jim variant, which doesn't need a ground plane. It just needs a place to hang, it could even hang from a broomstick outside your 2nd floor window. All kinds of plans and pre-built ones on the net, but here are a couple of my favorites:
http://www.jpole-antenna.com/shop/2-meter-slim-jim-antenna/ (http://www.jpole-antenna.com/shop/2-meter-slim-jim-antenna/)
Well-made, ready to plug-n-play, no meter needed. A bargain at $42, about $50 shipped.
http://www.kn9b.us/slim-jim-antenna (http://www.kn9b.us/slim-jim-antenna)
Dead easy to make for maybe $5 in parts. Be careful with the dimensions and it won't even need tuning (though it's probably smart to check the SWR before pushing 75w through it). Also a good bug-out antenna, I've hit repeater 25 miles away with a 5w HT using this design.
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I should have been clear, I would cover the platform with sheet metal, so the magnet has a purchase point and hence the ground plane on it.
This ^^ will work but only if the the sheet metal is somewhat large in area, a few square feet at minimum.
Ideally, the metal would be round in shape and allow at least 1/4 wavelength of metal around the antenna. In these cases though you have to work with what you have.
As long as there is a substantial ground plane, you should be ok.
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This ^^ will work but only if the the sheet metal is somewhat large in area, a few square feet at minimum.
Ideally, the metal would be round in shape and allow at least 1/4 wavelength of metal around the antenna. In these cases though you have to work with what you have.
As long as there is a substantial ground plane, you should be ok.
Perhaps not as ideal as a sheet metal ground plane, but you could also use an insect screen of a conductive metal. Even stainless should work and be a whole lot lighter for your platform. If you are going to build a platform anyway, there's no need for a mag mount, you could use something else bolted to the platform. (Yes, that means unscrewing the whisker when moving it out to the car and putting it back on the mag mount --)
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Build yourself an 80 Meter Wire Dipole and use a 4:1 Balun in the Center. Put up a Pole to hold the Balun in the center of your Lot, as high as you can get it, and then let the ends droop down to 15 Feet out at the Property Lines. You can use regular 14 Gauge Stranded Wire, as it will not stretch enough to cause you any issues. Then get yourself a Good MANUAL Tuner and use that to tune all the other Bands. I have used an 80 Meter on HF for decades, here in alaska and have very good contacts. Mine is 60Ft and strung between a tower and a Tree. Just say'en Bruce in alaska AL7AQ.....
If he is going to use an 80 meter dipole on all bands, he would be better off skipping the coax feed with a balun at the center and just feed it with balanced feedline starting at the center of the antenna and coming to his entry point right outside the shack and put the balun there but use a 1:1 current balun, then a short run of good 50 ohm coax coming into the shack to the tuner. This is what is know as an "All Band Doublet" that will work 10 thru 80 meters with a tuner. If he uses the coax feed, things will be good on 80 meters and efficiency will be about 75% on that band only. But there will still be a high SWR on the coax when force feeding it on other bands that will cause the losses to skyrocket. For example, by force feeding the 80 meter dipole on 40 meters, the losses in the coax feed will cause the efficiency to drop to somewhere around 10% which means he would be wasting about 90% of his power in the form of heat in the coax due to the losses. But by using a very low loss balanced feedline such as 450 ohm window line, the efficiency of the same antenna on 40 meters will be somewhere around 90%. The swr will still be present on the balanced feedline but the losses will still be very low simply because the balanced feedline is not effected by high swr like the coax is. You just make up the difference in mismatch by using the tuner. I know a lot of folks will say that this type of antenna is a compromise, but I would venture to say that they have never used such an antenna ! I know cause I use one all the time AND it works better than any coax fed dipole I have ever used and most of the time I run about 2 watts CW and have worked all over the world with it. My signal reports actually started getting consistently better when I switched to a balanced feedline and the locals that I chat with on 75 meter when I do operate phone all thought I had bought an amp !