[Elecraft] A Good Antenna Length?

[Hank Garretson]

102 feet.

There is nothing magic about 102 feet if you feed it with open-wire line.
Having a decent match at the feed point doesn't mean squat because
feed-point impedance is transformed by the feed line and what you get at
the transmitter end won't be the same as at the feed point unless feed-line
length is an even multiple of a half wavelength.

What IS important is the total length of one half of your dipole plus your
open-wire feed.

For whatever frequency/frequencies you want an easy match on, make half of
your dipole plus feed length as close to an odd multiple of a quarter
wavelength as you can.

This can be problematic if you want to operate on multiple bands. Don't
despair--it's not that hard. You can adjust flat-top length or feed-line
length or both to get something you can match on all your bands of
interest.

Bottom line. Your ability to match is affected by both dipole length and
(open-wire) feed-line length.

73,

Hank, W6SX