[Elecraft] OT: Antenna ideas for a cheap ham

[Edward R Cole]

I sent this to the reflector last Tuesday but it never posted on the 
reflector; here it is again:


>Date: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 09:03:13 -0800
>To: Elecraft Reflector
>From: Edward R Cole <kl7uw at acsalaska.net>
>Subject: OT: Antenna ideas for a cheap ham
>
>This might be considered an offshoot of the OT R8 discussion - read on:
>
>A local ham friend dropped by to show my an antenna he had acquired 
>wondering what freq. it covered.  After looking it over I decided it 
>was a 36-MHz quarter wave vertical with decoupling section at the 
>base and fed with a gamma-match.  The gamma has a 7/16 coax 
>connector with N-female adapter, so apparently commercial band.
>
>My friend also recently acquired an 80-foot crank-up tower for $100 
>(Yes, you read that correctly).  Some guys are really lucky!  He 
>lives on disability so has few funds for ham radio, but asks me what 
>antennas he can put on top of his tower.  He does not want a 
>directional antenna like a yagi...sooo
>
>First we considered he could lengthen the 72-inch commercial 
>vertical to operate on 10m and mount it on top of the tower.  But 
>that would only give him one band.He could also shorten it to 6m but 
>there is little local activity on that band so 10m probably would 
>provide him better use.
>
>For HF bands I thought about a dipole with auto-tuner.  Finally 
>thought maybe running sloping dipoles might work well.  Base load 
>that tower as grounded vertical? 160-40m?
>
>Another note:  He has a tech-class license so that limits where he 
>can operate.  I suggested upgrading to General and he is not adverse 
>to doing that.   He owns a IC-706.
>
>Any suggestions?

73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
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