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DIPOLE GONE WRONG, PLEASE HELP

K

KB1UGX

Member
May 21, 2010
52
0
16
This entire mess started because I wanted to get on HF
So I run out to the store and buy myself a nice
Yaesu 857
A bran new LDG 100 pro Auto Tuner
Bran new coax and a nice diamond quad band

The reason for the quad band is because I live in an apartment and the only thing suitable for an antenna is the balcony style fire escape I have out my window.

After making a mount for the quad band mobile I couldn’t get anywhere

This is all for 10 meters and 6

I couldn’t even get a town away. Now could I hear my buddy calling CQ a town away

So I returned that to HRO and got two
RADIO WAVS
Pre made dipoles

And here is what I came up with

I put a center 10 foot mast of PVC up and on the tip top I stuck the END fed 10 meter antenna and ran it down at 45 degrees to another piece of PVC laid out horizontally and notched at the end to except the antenna wire to keep it away and from coupling with the fire escape.

About half way down the mast I zip tied the center fed portion of the 6 Meter dipole I bought and fashioned that one in the inverted V as the directions indicated.

Both feed lines run directly up the mast each to its correct connector. I assume that it does not matter that they are on the same mast since they are no where near each other and only one antenna is used at a time.

The antenna wire on 6 meres is in an inverted V so it is no where near the feed line and the 10 meter END fed on the top is also at 45 degree so it is no where near its feed line.

I took great care in setting it up so it would not couple with anything.

These antennas according to the manufacturer can be thrown out a "hotel window on travel and will give great results.

I cant hear a thing or get out at all. I can barley hear on some other bands but nothing really readable

When a friend called me from a town away I could barley hear him
Both antennas tune great down to 1.2 ish

I have no idea what else to do and I'm on my witts end. I spent a ton of money trying to make this work and I'm not having a good time with my new found hobby at the moment and im fairly disappointed. So far the vertical wont work, this doesn’t work and I cant use a yagi because I'm in the city.

Can someone PLEASE offer some suggestions and help
This is what it looks like

IMG_2901.jpg


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IMG_2898.jpg
 

how much power are you running? Is your friend located in the direction of the opposite side of the building?
 
Just the 100 watts out of the 857
And its only on 85% so its not even 100 watts

I have no idea what way he is pointed nor I for that matter
But regardless of which way he is pointed you would think i should be able to her SOMETHING right? On any band? I was not aware that a dipole was a directional antenna
I cant hear diddly
 
Dipole Questions

What is the SWR of the antennas(dipoles) without the tuner in-line?
When you mounted the diamond antenna, how did you have that set-up
Don't get upset just yet, I have a feeling it's something small.
Give us another report.
Pics of the radio set-up and a few more from outside...maybe from street level where we can see the whole picture.
All the Best
BJ
 
I hate to sound like a broken record, but your antenna is 99.999% of your station. The best radio in the world is useless without a decent antenna. You should have figured out what you were doing for an antenna before you bought a radio, but you did not, so now we deal with making it workable. If you are just working 6 and 10m, at least the antennas will be a manageable size. Describe your location better. First floor, etc... access to the roof, trees nearby? Low antennas dont work well. Antennas blocked by structure dont work well. ( at least at vhf) Antennas in close proximity WILL interact. Store bought wire antennas are a waste of money.

With more info from you, and some patience, maybe we can offer some help for you.

PR

After a cuppa and rereading your post, here are a couple of simple suggestions to get you started. Forget 6 for now. Take that antenna down, and remove the tuner.

Removing variables will help you in narrowing down the problems. Second 6 and 10 are not especially lively bands, and you might not hear much even with a good antenna setup. ( good being relative here.)

Put your rig on 20 or 40 and tune around to find an active freq, and listen for a while. It will make you relax. ( and show you your radio is working).
 
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Antennas

Let's not be too hard on him guys as to what he should have done and what's a waste of money...we all learn (well most of us) from doing and we do better the next time. I have had some great antennas, including the G5RV wire antenna I use today, which I 'bought in a store', that have worked marvelously for me. Not everybody is handy with insulators and soldering guns and such.

Anyway...I do agree that the higher you can get the antenna the better. Sneaking onto the roof [in a SAFE way] may be a possibility. I also wonder what your experience level with the new FT-857 is in terms of:
ATT Attenuator switch off?
Filters or DSP disengaged?
MODE set correctly for band segment?
NOT set to work SPLIT (A=B will fix that)
Power sounds like you set it at 85%, fine

Good luck and let us know how you do.
 
Another suggestion. You have trees! Throw a rope, string etc over the top of the trees and hoist one end of your 10 m dipole up high into the tree.

Second, endfed antennas are NOT really a classic dipole. Make a 10m dipole from some wire, it is only about 20 feet long, and hoist it up and give it a try. Don't be overly concerned with swr for now, and forget the tuner. It is NOT used with single band resonant wire antennas. Only confuses things. Once you get ten working, you can add bands to the same antenna making a fan dipole, all fed with the same coax and hung in the same tree. But start with one band , get it working, and then move on.

You can listen on all the HF bands with one antenna, so go where there is activity and listen when 10 or 6 is slow, which is much of the time.

Get online and research building antennas. Nothing special about store bought antennas except the cost, and it just feels better to make contacts on equipment you built with your own two hands.


Relax and have some fun. This is all about learning.
 
I understand your frustration, I've been in this game a while and it can really make your blood pressure rise when you've done a lot of work and things don't go as you are certain they should!

It's possible there's nothing wrong with your antennas. It's been mentioned here already, but 6 and 10 meters are not going to be as populated as say, 20 meters most of the time. And that can be a good thing, trust me! That said, listen quite a bit around 28400 and see if you hear any stations. If 10 is open at all, that's where most of the SSB activity will be concentrated. There are also the 10 meter beacons between 28200 and 28300, but those are nearly all low power. If you DO hear one of those and it's not your neighbor down the street, you're probably OK.

How far away is your buddy two towns away?

Bear in mind that the crummy truth is we are still in a period of nearly non existent sunspot activity, and that what band openings we're going to have on both 10 and 6 meters right now will likely be Sporadic E, which happens every summer. In the peak of a solar cycle 6 meters is a lot of fun, but it's a tough band to cut your teeth on the way things are right now.

If you tune across 20 or 40 meters, do you hear anything at all? Even with a 10 meter dipole you should be able to receive signals there, especially on 40 at night. Give that a try if you haven't already, just to see. If you don't hear a thing at all on those bands (and 20 is still pretty spotty), then you may have something to troubleshoot.

Either way, you're gonna be OK! Let us know.


Rick
 
Thank you to all that offered suggestions.

Im going to answer everyone's thoughts here one by one

In regards to buying a store bought antenna and not building one,

Here is a part I left out
I did build one. I built one in almost the exact fashion as the one I just bought however my homemade dipole did not work either. So to eliminate the possibility that I may have built my FIRST antenna incorrectly I went out and bought those.

My concern is that I cant really hear on any band. I have tried to listen to mostly 40 at night with it being open and I was on 20 in the early evening and heard one station from Cuba that announced he was running a 1000w amplifier. I know there is not a lot on 6 and 10.
The 6 I put up mainly to use with my local repeaters. When I had the vertical mobile up 3 antennas ago, I heard one station on 10 from PA and I'm in MA that also had an amplifier and I could only hear one side of the conversation.

The antenna is about 30 or 40 feet of the ground for I am on the 3rd floor. I could literally throw the thing in a tree hover it would be in branches mostly. Is that ok?
And who knows if id ever get it back. There are also power lines beneath me so im not sure I would want to do that. If it fell out of the tree it would hit them.

Last night I took the tuner out of the equation to eliminate that. Still no change.

The attenuator is off and the dsp filters are off.
Im fairly familiar with the radio menus. I also have tried it with the IPO both off and on

My buddy I was trying to hear is two towns away and also another friend of mine was about 30 miles away

I have not been able to hear any beacons on any bands. I have been trying to use those as landmarks for band opening.

I unfortunately have no roof access. I was looking at a 21 foot tall multiband Ringo verticle last night but have no room for it here. So unless I get something like this working im out of options as far as antenna design goes.

I have researched a lot online and purchased the ARRL antenna book still with no ideas.
I am fairly handy as I'm an engineer.

I dont suppose rrecting another 10 foot section of mast and making it 20 feet of the balcony would help would it?
I mean im already 30 or 40 feet in the air

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.

I hope i can return the favor someday
Here are some more pictures like requested to see the outside surrounding areas.
To get a better picture. I have also drawn a quick picture to help visualize the design for what the pictures cant show.


73


Antenna.png


IMG_2905.jpg


IMG_2904.jpg


IMG_2903.jpg


IMG_2902.jpg
 
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If you cant hear anything, there is a serious problem somewhere.Do you have white noise? Is your rf gain turned completely up? I am beginning to suspect a coax or radio issue, as ANY sort of antenna will let you receive! Something. If the radio works and you are not inside a lead box, you WILL receive! Something.Even with a piece of speaker wire stuck into the antenna port, you WILL receive something.As an example, I use a cb antenna on my downstairs radio to monitor HF, including 80 and 160, and I have pretty good receive. Is this a brand new radio, or a second hand radio? Are you close to another ham so that you can take your rig to a known good station, and hook up to the antenna to test it out? We have to get you hearing something, and then we can get you hearing lots of somethings.LOL
 
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packrat said:
If you cant hear anything, there is a serious problem somewhere.Do you have white noise? Is your rf gain turned completely up? I am beginning to suspect a coax or radio issue, as ANY sort of antenna will let you receive! Something. If the radio works and you are not inside a lead box, you WILL receive! Something.Even with a piece of speaker wire stuck into the antenna port, you WILL receive something.As an example, I use a cb antenna on my downstairs radio to monitor HF, including 80 and 160, and I have pretty good receive. Is this a brand new radio, or a second hand radio? Are you close to another ham so that you can take your rig to a known good station, and hook up to the antenna to test it out? We have to get you hearing something, and then we can get you hearing lots of somethings.LOL
Click to expand...

Like i said above i was able to hear a station from cuba, ( kinda) and one from PA on field day ( when useing the quad band, who indicated he was useing an amp but i couldnt hear the other side of his conversation, nor could he hear me) but that has been it. According to the propagation chart of been watching 20 meters has been open and i should be able to hear lots.

I have made one contact on 6 meters when i was useing the quad band and on a repeater near by.

The radio is Bran new outa the box and ive used it on vhf/uhf with great success just as a side note, not that it has to do much with HF

6 isnt what concerns me. Its that theres been lots on hf going on and i am def as a post besides a rare occaional garbled voice or the one cuba station i was able to tune in. I would assume there should be lots more to listen to then that.

So this is where i sit.
I debated on adding anothre 10 foot section of mast to try and get over the house. However my landlord is having a fit as it is.

I hope the added pictures and diagram i did was helpful to understand what is going on.
 
I'm a little confused about the 10M antenna -- if it's actually END FED, it's almost certainly going to be a lot more of a problem than if it were center fed. For an end fed antenna you need radials and/or a counterpoise in just about all cases.

As suggested earlier, try a real center-fed dipole for 10M.
 
Beetle said:
I'm a little confused about the 10M antenna -- if it's actually END FED, it's almost certainly going to be a lot more of a problem than if it were center fed. For an end fed antenna you need radials and/or a counterpoise in just about all cases.

As suggested earlier, try a real center-fed dipole for 10M.
Click to expand...

I did try a center fed
The one i made. Which tunes out just fine with the same results

An END fed has a counter poise. Its just configured differently

End Fed H/W
 

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