Not a big beam with a tower and rotor. I am on a budget. What do you use ? I was looking at the hustler 6BTV It doesn't look to hard to install and bury some radials. also looking at long wire G5RV etc. Wanted to put up a multiband antenna.
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Looking for antenna ideas
- Thread starter Grogan
- Start date
The 'other' kind of multiband antenna is still viable. The longest center fed doublet you can manage, feed it with ladder line through a tuner. My favorite is an 80 meter loop fed with ladder line and a tuner. Depending on the length of the ladder line it can be used almost any band higher than 80 meters. The higher you go in frequency with a loop like that the more gain it has. Nothing approaching a beam, and there are always going top be nulls or 'dead' spots, but I like them. They do take a lot of room though.
- 'Doc
- 'Doc
One of the better multiband wire antenna's is the 135 ft Off-Center-Fed Dipole (better described as an Off-Center-Fed Antenna). An offshoot of the Windom antenna, it covers 80 thru 6 Meters. Typically it covers 40, 20, 17, 12, lower parts of 10 and 6 Meters without a tuner. A wideband tuner is needed for 80. You may also be able to use it on 160, 60, 30, and 15 Meters with a wideband tuner at a power level of 100 Watts PEP (to prevent stress on the balun). Speaking of Balun: Get an OCF that uses a 4:1 or 6:1 two-core Current Balun, plus it will choke the RF at the Balun feed point. The Current Balun will allow mounting directly to a tower if needed. The models that use a Voltage Balun must be placed several feet away (best if mounted from a tree or other non-metallic structure) since the transmission line (typically 20 feet) needs to connect to a 1:1 line isolation transformer. The 20 feet of line between the Balun and Isolation Transformer radiates and becomes part of the antenna (much like the balanced line used in a G5RV antenna).
Mike
Mike
You know, that balanced line part of a G5RV's feed is for impedance matching and is only an incidental radiator, it's 'balanced' so shouldn't radiate much at all. The point where there's an 'imbalance' is where things start to radiate. If done right, there should be very little radiation from the feed line on it's resonant frequency/band, which is 20 meters. Since the other bands are harmonics, all bets are off.
- 'Doc
- 'Doc
It took me all of an hour to build mine and its been up for years. I pull it down from time to time to make sure everything is kosher. i have wires for 17, 20 and 40, if I need 15 it loads on the 40 meter wire. For 10/12 I use a LDG autotuner.
I have dedicated wires for 40/80. A fan for 10, 15 and 20. Wire and 1/4 wave vertical for 6. A Gainmaster for 10, 11 and 12. Dipole for 17 meters.
Mike I was looking at the windom antenna and then you posted yours. Wow you explain it well I think Iam going to order one soon. are they best set up north to south... East to west ?????? my mast is about 32' ft tall and would connect to it about 29' to 30' high and run it flat. Also the home QTH is New Jersey.... now if I can make up my mind on Icom 7200 Kenwood TS-480sat or yaesu Ft 897D all 3 radios have good reviews. Like the yaesu has 2 meters and 70 cm also in ssb....
I would go with a trap dipole or fan dipole/inverted V. Windoms have too many funny lobes and nulls. G5RV is a primarily a 20 meter antenna, that is so-so on some other bands. I do not understand the fascination with the G5RV to this day. And, yes I have used one, decades ago.