Home > Antennas
My Antennas
These pages will contain basic information about antennas. From 1987 until June, 2006, I
only used wire antennas. The reason being they are cheap to make, easy to make, and they
work really well. You can pick up a 500 ft roll of wire at your hardware store of choice and
have enough wire to make a lot of antenna, especially for the higher bands. If you use an antenna
tuner that will tune twin lead, and you are only running 200 watts or less, you can use TV twin
lead for feedline. My local hardware used to have the TV twin lead for about $20.00 for 100 ft.
In recent years they have stopped carrying it and I have to look for other
sources. I have decided to switch over from the TV twin lead to 450 ohm
ladder line. There is not a huge difference in price, 450 ohm ladder line
will handle higher power in case I ever decide to run higher power, and the
ladder line is widely available.
The only drawbacks to wire antennas are that they are prone to damage from ice and falling
limbs. Also, if you use trees as supports there is the possibility of damage in high winds as the
trees whip around. It pays to leave a little slack in the antenna. Regardless of
how you support wire antennas you will most likely have to repair breaks from
time to time. The wires I have in the air now have been up a couple years
without breaking. However I did have to pull down a 20/40 meter dipole a few
weeks ago because one of the supporting lines had broken. The antenna is still
in tact and as soon as the summer heat breaks I will raise it back up. To use a
wire antenna on multiple bands you will have to use an antenna tuner. Currently
I have two antennas that I can use on multiple bands - an 80 meter Delta Loop
and what I call a long dipole. The long dipole is approximately 100 feet of wire
fed near the middle with TV 300 ohm twin lead. I only had enough feedline to
reach to the middle of the 100 ft dipole, adding length will require making the
feedline longer too. Soon I will add enough wire to the dipole to make it 135 ft
long, fed in the middle with 450 ohm ladder line. I am just waiting on the funds
to buy enough ladder line to swap all the TV twin lead out.
The 80 meter Delta Loop was cut to be resonant in the CW portion of the band.
It is fed with TV twin lead also, and will work on all bands with the use of an
antenna tuner. For a couple years the Delta Loop and the long dipole have been
the workhorse antennas for me. Depending on conditions, where the DX station is
located that I am trying to work, and probably a host of other factors that I
know nothing about, one antenna may be favored over the other. It is nice to be
able to switch between a couple different antennas to find the one that is
working the best on any given day.
The only problem with multi band wire antennas is you have to use an antenna
tuner and tune up each time you change bands. Also, even though the antenna
tuner will allow you to use the antenna on multiple bands the antenna is still
not resonant on those bands. The antenna tuner adjust the feedline
characteristics so your radio sees the load as a 50 ohm match. That is what all
modern radios expect to see at their antenna output.
For these reasons, and because I wanted to try out a commercially manufactured vertical antenna, in June
2006 I bought a Hustler 5BTV. The picture at the top left of this page shows this antenna installed as a
ground mounted antenna. This is a temporary location as I hope to move the radio room and antennas
to a better location sometime in the future. Because the vertical is adjusted to
be resonant on each band I can change bands without having to go through tuning
up with the antenna tuner. That part is nice, but the vertical does not work as
well for me as the Delta Loop and long dipole. In the winter when the soil here
is normally wet the vertical works fairly well, comparable to the loop and
dipole. But in the summer when it hasn't rained for weeks and the ground dries
out to the point of cracking, the vertical doesn't work very well. So for me the
vertical is useful for 6 months of the year, maybe less. In a different location
it may work better.
As I said, in the winter the vertical has performed well, and I have worked
countries as far away as New Zealand on 40 meters. I do use it in the fall and
winter during the various DX contests.