[Elecraft] feeding a half-wave dipole with ladder line

[Jim Brown]

On 10/28/2021 2:23 PM, Ed Cole wrote:
> I am redesigning my 40/80/160/630m antennas.
> 
> A year ago the tower I was supporting my 630m Invert-L was damaged by 
> wind and taken down.  Replacement tower is shorter so not suitable end 
> wire support for HF antenna.

Hi Ed,

Take a look at the antennas on VK4YB's qrz page. My neighbor W6GJB 
rigged a version of the first one that I tweaked in NEC to fit his real 
estate and available trees. He's feeding directly with a simple LC 
matching network that I designed in SimSmith based on measuring the 
antenna feedpoint Z. If you've got the real estate and supports, it's a 
great antenna for that band, because it's relatively efficient.

The antenna works VERY well, because it's end-loaded. Lengths are 
tweaked so that the max current is in the vertical section. In addition 
to tweaking those lengths, I also gave him the option of splitting the 
end loading into two or three shorter wires running in different 
directions. GJB has worked VK4YB several times; VK4YB and NO3M set a 
630m record several years ago (which may be broken by now).

73, Jim K9YC