10 to 40 long wire ant

[Captain Kilowatt]

One of my thoughts was to “thread” Dacron rope through the ladder line and let the Dacron be the actual strength, that away I don’t have the wind pulling on the ladder line.

Or is that a bad idea?

Unless you tension it quite tight it will still whip around. I ran nearly 100 feet and just twisted it. Never had a problem with it breaking or anything. It is actually copper clad steel wire and is very strong. Just make sure you have strain relief at each end to take the strain off the feedpoint and balun/tuner if using a remote tuner.

 

[TruckerKevin]

Hey, if any of you still got your ears on today.

I built a ground mounted vertical antenna following this plan

http://www.hamuniverse.com/kl7jr520metervert.html

It’s 33 feet from base to tip.

The issue is, it only tunes on 40 meter. Yet it’s supposed to be a 20 meter antenna.

Granted I probably need more ground radials as I only have a few laid down. But I’m not sure if I need to shorten or lengthen it because my SWRs are sky high on all bands. Like over 9. My icom 7300 wont show me if they are higher on any certain frequency because the swr goes above the graph.

What do you all think?

 

[BJ radionut]

Connect to tuner and rig, adjust tuner for lowest SWR.
Per directions bottom of construction page.
Requires an outboard MANUAL tuner.
A half-wave stick requires a matching network at the base to match to 50-ohm coax. Practical guess a 9:1 balun.
Now the good news, a little shortening to about 32 ft 6 inches +/- and radials at least 4 the same length or 5% longer you will have a 40m 1/4 wave vertical ground plane.
These work pretty well used one many time's on field days.
When you add 10 to 30 additional radials you'll get even better performance.
Now next question measure 40m VSWR at 7.000...then again at 7.200 one more time at 7.300 after you add full-length radials. (make sure the internal tuner is OFF)
Then report back we can tell you where to go next.
Got to give you A for effort Kevin, you just skipped over the last sentence of the construction page.
All the Best
Gary

Check this out: http://iw5edi.com/ham-radio/files/novice-multiband-antenna.pdf

 

[TruckerKevin]

Well I lengthened it to 34” before I had a chance to read this thread, and my help retired for the day so I’m home alone.

But for giggles, with the tuner off, I am getting 1.5 pretty much evenly across all 3 of those frequencies you mentioned. The tuner puts me flat as a pancake.

I did add some more radials since the last time I posted. Not quite 30, but a few more.

I still have my dipole up also, so I can do a 1-1 comparison here in a little while. This was kinda fun and kinda aggravating both at the same time lol

 

[BJ radionut]

BINGO!!!! Good Job...Now just for giggles check on 15m...your internal tuner can match it if it's like 2:1 or maybe even 2.5:1
Check with tuner OFF first!

 

[TruckerKevin]

Unless I’m reading it wrong, it’s flat across the 15 meter band with the tuner off. With the tuner on, it tunes just fine automatically and they are still flat.

I had a chance to do a little side by side testing.

My inverted 40 meter V dipole is about 35 feet up at the feedpoint. I have it and my vertical I made today both to a Daiwa switch.

The inverted V dipole outperforms the vertical I made today, but not by very much. I found some QSOs on 40 meter. As I flip the switch back and forth, the signal drops slightly. Ever so slightly. For the worse on the vertical. The dipole is the clear winner with RX strength. The signal noise seemed to be the same.

To note,, I was not able to “pick up any extras” by flipping to the dipole. It just made a slight improvement on existing RX strength by a small margin.

 

[TruckerKevin]

Not so fast. As I moved up the band I found it to be the opposite.

The vertical outperformed the dipole on some others.

It looks like a mixed bag. I suppose the conditions have a heck of a lot to do with it

 

[TruckerKevin]

Here’s a picture, keep in mind this is not a finished product

 

[TruckerKevin]

And here’s the dipole. Above it is my Maco V58, about 60 feet up. The dipole is only about 36 or so

 

[BJ radionut]

Yep: Now your learning...now pay attention as it gets darker...Good change the dipole will out hear the vert in the short plane 500 miles or less...Tonight after dark...good chance the signals in the 750-1000 mile range will be better on the vert. However, now you have a gander of having more than one antenna to capture signals is an advantage.
You now have a working 2 band vertical. Now, look at your construction as time allows and see how to improve connections and other details!!!
Good Job Kevin!
All the Best
Gary

 

[TruckerKevin]

Thanks for all the help and advice Gary, and Captain.

This is how I learn

 

[BJ radionut]

Kevin: I been in this hobby 40 years...Guess what I am still learning.
However, fun AIN'T It!
Always glad to help when I can!

 

[TruckerKevin]

One more question.

With this Balun on the way, I noticed that it has the wing nuts for the ladder line on the feedpoint inputs to accept the ladder line, but an SO 259 connector to the output.

Wouldn’t this be counterproductive to run RG8 from the Balun to the tuner? I would thing that negates the whole idea of using ladder line.

Unless , after the Balun, it don’t really matter anymore? It would indeed make it easier to run RG8 coax through my metal mobile home wall verses trying to run ladder line while staying away from the metal. But I want this done right

 

[BJ radionut]

Which balun did you order?

 

[TruckerKevin]

The MFJ911H

The one you recommended to me early in the thread