[Elecraft] OT: Antenna ideas for a cheap ham

[drewko]

I don't have a tower but I am using a 10-20m cobweb antenna in my
attic. It's non-directional and feeds with a single coax. It gets out
pretty well on all five bands. Recently worked aZL station on 17m with
less than 2 watts (this is the requisite anecdotal information... but
true.) I'd love to try it on an 80 ft tower...

I'm using the G3TXQ version with single-wire elements. I originally
trimmed it to freq using a (cheap) noise bridge but a graphical
antenna analyzer would be nice and easy.

73,
Drew
AF2Z


On Sat, 13 Sep 2014 13:16:37 -0800, you wrote:

>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
>     "Kits made by KL7UW"
>Dubus Mag business:
>     dubususa at gmail.com
>