Good idea. I know Homer to talk to and he knows his business. I'd also like to talk to someone who uses one. I am quite impressed what mine can do in a horizontal or slightly sloped configuration, but never tried it vertical like cjruger has his. I think my pole is tall enough, but the bottom end will be close to the ground. Not sure how that will affect it.
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Is there any way to add radials under a homemade 1/2 w dipole vertical?
- Thread starter cjruger
- Start date
Seems to be getting out good, im in ny, conditions hace been up and down latly. I can get to florida, southern east coast states,this jamica past week. I also still have my original dipole up on my roof that is horizontal. I just finally ran a lenght of coax to tie in to my new base location so i can switch back and forth between the vertical in the tree and the horizontal on the roof. The only difference i see as far as reception, is the horizontal has a steady 3 s units of static. The horizontal is quite. Both recieve the same, as in when im listening to someone and switch over the signal seems about the same.
Im playing around with a 5/8 wave but cant seem to get the matching coil right
Is that a typo? You mean the vertical is quiet?
I know my horizontal always has a lot of static.
Either way, tomorrow I am going to try it in a vertical, to see how it works.
Yes, sorry , the vertical is quite compared to the horizontal. Which i thought i read somewhere a horizontal would pick up less noise and interfierance. How is yours as a vertical? Im thinking om going with the vertical unless i find the horizontal transmits better. I already used the horizontal last summer and fall with good results, california, texas... All over US and couple in england, ireland and spain
In general, it is the vertical antenna that is more prone to noise since most man made/generated noise is vertically polarized. The only way that you can get more noise on a horizontal that I can think of, is if your horizontal is too close to horizontal power lines. Maybe you might consider moving its location?
Sorry it took so long. I just pulled one end up that pole, and I would say it worked fairly well, cause right away, I pulled in a Toronto station, which is very unusual for me here. I never talk North of here, partly cause to the North of my antenna is an 18 or 20 foot tall steel highway barricade wall that should reflect everything on a horizontal plane from my antenna, and then a road and across the road starts up a steep hill for about 800 feet from the canyon floor to the top of the bluffs along the Mississippi River.
It gets worse. Directly over my trailer is a three wire power line, a big pole mounted transformer and about 200 yards West are the really high tension wires. Believe it or not, none of this seems to affect the static or TX or RX out of here at all.
So, the bad news is, as a strict vertical, one end up at the top of the pole and one down with the balun in the middle, the antenna is too long. The low end drags on the ground, but I still got out. On the bummer side, I use a wireless mouse and keyboard and the splatter really messed that up, locking it up till I rebooted. I think the RF off the Balun just outside the window did it.
Now I have pulled the Balun up to the top, one leg out at a 45% angle to the South, and one just hanging down still. I am about to go out and tie it up at a45 to the North, to see how it helps. Still, there is good news. In this configuration, I came back in to see what it would do and got a guy from Northern Ontario, Operator Dave, 62 N. Ontario, who was shocked to talk to a guy from Wisconsin, "Blowing His Windows Out". LOL
I will let you know how that other leg works when I come back in. Remember, the Balun is still only about 17 feet off the ground, and still below the level of that roadway to my North side only 40 feet. It's a radio transmission mess here.
It gets worse. Directly over my trailer is a three wire power line, a big pole mounted transformer and about 200 yards West are the really high tension wires. Believe it or not, none of this seems to affect the static or TX or RX out of here at all.
So, the bad news is, as a strict vertical, one end up at the top of the pole and one down with the balun in the middle, the antenna is too long. The low end drags on the ground, but I still got out. On the bummer side, I use a wireless mouse and keyboard and the splatter really messed that up, locking it up till I rebooted. I think the RF off the Balun just outside the window did it.
Now I have pulled the Balun up to the top, one leg out at a 45% angle to the South, and one just hanging down still. I am about to go out and tie it up at a45 to the North, to see how it helps. Still, there is good news. In this configuration, I came back in to see what it would do and got a guy from Northern Ontario, Operator Dave, 62 N. Ontario, who was shocked to talk to a guy from Wisconsin, "Blowing His Windows Out". LOL
I will let you know how that other leg works when I come back in. Remember, the Balun is still only about 17 feet off the ground, and still below the level of that roadway to my North side only 40 feet. It's a radio transmission mess here.
Nice, keep the updates coming, what are you using as a balun? I did the loops of coax and couldnt get better than a 1:5 swr. Then after this thread started i moved my vertical up higher( bottom is now about 7' off the ground and i have no balun, just coax running perfectly perpindicular to antenna. In that process I realized my radiating wire( leg that is connected to center wire of coax ) was the lower part of antenna. So i flipped it around and have a perfect swr reading all of a sudden. The swr needle does not even move, i thiught something was wrong. So i guess it makes a difference what end is up!
My Balun on the dipole makes a flat SWR with no amp powering it. I mean 1.00:1. It has to be horizontal, both legs out to the sides "opposite" each other. If I do an Inverted V, with the legs "Opposite" each other, still good. But, If I have the legs at a 45 angle down, but both forward of an imaginary center line, then my SWR zooms up to over 3. Dangerous ground with an amp. All I can figure out is the two legs are reflecting off each other and sending it back down the coax. I don't really know, but it's not good. Move the legs back so they are opposed to each other with the balun in the middle, high or low, flat or very low SWR again, with the amp on or off.
And of course, the sky is clear, the sun is out, it's a perfect day, and the skip has died like a fish out of water. It seems skip only runs around here when it rains and storms. LOL
The fact that my radiation pattern has gone more circular with the inverted V is a great sign though.
And of course, the sky is clear, the sun is out, it's a perfect day, and the skip has died like a fish out of water. It seems skip only runs around here when it rains and storms. LOL
The fact that my radiation pattern has gone more circular with the inverted V is a great sign though.
OK, here's an update. Skip just opened up a bit as the sun went down. 308 North Texas just boomed in here like he was out in the parkling lot. We talked for 4 minutes. Not real crowded now for some reason. I think I made a good change to my antenna at this point, thanks to this thread and cjruger.
I'll give you a shout.
I'll give you a shout.