[Elecraft] Re: Portable Antennae

[Ken Kirkley]

Hey Mike:
I would love to get the PDF with the info. This sounds exactly like what 
I am looking for.

Thanks!
Ken/NO4D

Mike Morrow wrote:
> Ken wrote:
>
>   
>> ...I would like to construct a good portable antennae to use while camping
>>     
>
> I have played around with multi-band HF antennas for camping and backpacking
> for more than 30 years.  I've tried resonant dipoles with and without traps,
> untuned dipoles fed with balanced line, simple and complex verticals, fed-fed
> wires, etc.
>
> I have never found anything that works as well as the least-expensive of the
> above...the resonant dipole.  I have never found anything that works as poorly
> as verticals.  Portable verticals, lacking a very good ground system, are very
> poor in performance compared to a dipole, if a side-by-side comparison at the
> same site and the same time is done.  Outrageously priced vertical "dummy
> loads," such as those produced under the "Outbacker" name (with that bogus
> "ground coupling" base) are among the very worst.  Most (or all) commercial
> vertical offerings allow the waste of hundreds of dollars to prove that contacts
> can still be made using the poorest of antenna systems.
>
> For the past 20 years I've used a dipole with appropriate insulators located
> in each leg that can be jumpered to get a resonant dipole, without traps, on
> any band between 40m and 10m.  I use PCV water tubing for the insulators, and
> flex- or super-weave wire that has withstood many set-up/take-down cycles
> without the first sign of wire fatique failure.  It takes less than a minute
> to lower the antenna and alter the jumpers to change band.  I have worked more
> than 40 countries from camp sites using this antenna less than 10 feet above 
> ground.  I can send anyone interested a small .pdf file that describes all the
> details and dimensions.  It's all quickly home-made at very low cost.
>
> Mike / KK5F
>
>
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