yaesu 857d and atas120 as a home station.

[m6rkw]

So i am looking to fit my 857 in the house now as im thinking of a portable for the car..

My 857 and atas 120 did reside as my car setup but now i want to bring it into my static carvan.

The questions are these, will the atas cover all the bands, and who well will it perform as a base station antenna? Space is very limited here so it would have to be a vertical antenna, would the atas work or would i be better investing in another vertical and a tuner unit.

Any help thoughts welcomed on my pending home base setup!

 

[Happy_Hamer]

How are you planning on mounting the antenna?

DO NOT buy that junk ass Yaesu Radial Kit.

You can and WILL NEED to make your own radials,

Check this out

AA5FR - Yaesu ATAS 120a

 

[m6rkw]

thanks

thanks for the reply, some pretty interesting stuff on that guys page.

Not sure on how to mount it yet.

I was thinking of some type of free standing system that i could put up and down in the garden. I could have pretty much anything made as i work for a company that has its own fabrication department, so could have a steel box section base made with a pole attached. Then i could fold up and down with the atas on the end of it using say a bought gutter mount or similar adapted to join to it.

Not sure on grounding the whole thing though, im pretty sure i have read somewhere that the atas must have very good grounding to work correctly?

Not sure on the design of this yet though..

 

[Happy_Hamer]

Check this out

http://k9sth.com/uploads/R.F._Grounding_primer_2.pdf

Radials and Grounds

 

[Moleculo]

There are better mobile vertical HF antennas, but if you already have it, then why not use it? Basically any mobile vertical can be used as a base or fixed station antenna. All you have to do is figure out how to mount it and then create the missing ground plane that your vehicle created. That can be as simple as running some wires out flat on the roof or ground. You can get pretty creative with the ground plane, but the bigger and more of it that you make, the better the antenna will work.