Antennas

GENERAL

This antenna is designed for 40, 80 and 160 meters to complement a tri-band beam normally taken on DXpeditions for 10, 15 and 20 meters, so six bands can be worked with only two antennas.

by Earl W. Cunningham, K6SE published in QST (ARRL), Newington, July 2000 These simple, geometrically shaped etheric transducers work well no matter what the geologic characteristics beneath them may be. Invented almost 80 years ago, the Beverage antenna is still the receiving antenna of choice among 160-meter DX enthusiasts. But […]

The term “Ufer” grounding is named after a consultant working for the US Army during World War II. The technique Mr. Ufer came up with was necessary because the site needing grounding had no underground water table and little rainfall. The desert site was a series of bomb storage vaults […]

Just to remember the old (but still good) antenna tricks, here is a brief description of the W3EDP antenna. It is included here because I worked some DX stations operating from portable sites with very strong signals. I asked “what antenna are you using” and they replied “a W3EDP”. So, […]

by Barry Boothe, W9UCW, QST December 1974   Mobile operators and those who reside on property of city-lot size should findthe author’s treatment of physically shortened 160-meter vertical antennas of considerable interest. Construction details are given here for making his Minooka Special from readily available inexpensive materials. Performance is reported […]

The 4 rule The reactance of the windings should be at least four times the impedance the winding is designed to look into. where Zi … input impedance Zw … winding impedance thus where Lw … winding inductance Zi … input impedance f … design frequency To find the number […]

This description is taken from the Pete's W2PM posting into Topband reflector.

This antenna is very simple - it's a mini diamond Flag - with a 660 ohm terminating resistor and a 16:1 transformer. It is the exact size of the so-called magnetic loops, - 5 ft per side, 20 ft total wire, and about 7.1 ft wingspan. It has classic Flag cardiodal pattern and, of course, pretty low output (-50 dB from what I recall). F/B is about 30 dB. I use it with a single preamp with good results. This antenna is quite easily rotatable as you can see (altho the standard 15 X 30 ft Flags have been made rotatable too as most of you know).

This has several advantages over the "mag" loop (for those on small lots) - it's broadband 1.8 MHz past 30mhz; cardioid pattern with very nice null to rear, decent low angle take off (abt 32 deg) AND is simple - make it in minutes. I used 2 - 330 ohm resistors a binocular 16:1 transformer. I "potted" the resistors and xfrmr in epoxy.

I've since cleaned mine up - routing the RG-174 coax from the transformer to the center of the crosses, then connect it to a RG-58 run vertically down the mast.

Thanx loads to Earl K6SE for the design.73 Pete, W2PM

by Louis Varney, CEng, MIEE, AIL, G5RV* * (taken from RADIO COMMUNICATIONS, JULY 1984) THE G5RV ANTENNA, with its special feeder arrangement, is a multiband centre-fed antenna capable of very efficient operation on all hf bands from 3.5 to 28 MHz, specifically designed with dimensions which allow it to be […]