[FARC] Kirk's antenna gremlins

[Bob Moroney]

Kirk,
You can definitely get a respectable signal out on multiple bands with 
the Windom-type antenna that Dave describes, so I'd say you probably 
shouldn't reject it out of hand.  The design he linked to works down to 
80m and requires 140 ft. to string it up, but if you don't have that 
sort of unimpeded distance to hang a wire antenna, the design can be 
scaled down to work on 40m and up or even 20m and up for very restricted 
spaces.  Radio Works used to sell a scaled down "Carolina Windom", but 
they don't seem to offer it as a stock item any more.  If you wanted to 
try a shortened Windom, you could try emailing K3MT to see if he has any 
recommendations.  The "Grasswire" antennas K3MT describes on his web 
site also looks very interesting (at least to me).  Good luck!

73, Bob K9CMR
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
kirktal7237 at msn.com wrote:
> The lack of response must be due to impatience with rookies.  Thanks 
> for your response Dave, any and all help and advice I can get is 
> welcomed though not always understood.
>
> I've been in ham radio for a year now and the lesson I've learned from 
> many hams is that there is no quick and easy answer to getting radios 
> and antennas to work despite antenna/radio manufacturer and 
> advertising claims to the contrary.  Try and cut a corner and you end 
> up cutting performance. This is frustrating because we spend big bucks 
> for multiband radios and there isn't an easy way to make use of all 
> the bands.  Unless you have acres and acres of property to erect a 
> dipole for every band, you kind of have to pick an operating frequency 
> area and stick with it and let all the other band capability of the 
> radio go to waste.
>
> I've learned that the basic formula, 468/Freq in Mhz. gives you the 
> length of your dipole and 421/Freq in Mhz. gives you the wavelength 
> height.  Do it any other way and you're subtracting performance from 
> the antenna/radio combination; add poor propagation conditions and 
> like me you'll have little success in making contacts.
>
> As for the technical aspects of HF antenna theory, that's light-years 
> over my head, so far in fact that the study of it is painful.   I 
> understand a piece of wire cut to length for a specific frequency, 
> mounted at the wavelength height for that frequency, and fed with a 
> matched feedline will give the best results.    I know this is a 
> narrow (mono-frequency) viewpoint but like you indicated, anything 
> else is a compromise, another word for losing ground.   Multiband 
> antenna?  Has to be an oxymoron in reference to dipoles.  What you've 
> got here is mediocre performance on all the bands.
>
> Now I also know this from a year of listening to hams.  Those guys 
> with the multiband beams mounted on very tall towers with rotators and 
> using linear amps are ALWAYS HEARD with commercial radio studio 
> quality sound all over the world.  Must be something to this.
>
> 73
> KB3ONM
> Kirk
>
>