[FieldDay] Antenna support suggestions

[kb3ckd at juno.com]

Dear Brian,

Your club wanting to do fd is a worthy event. I was FD chairperson in my old club in Pa. I am now in Oklahoma and club less. Here are some considerations for what you are trying to do. 

1-  6 and 2 meter --depending on location and density will produce contacts. Don't overlook FM as a viable mode for both bands. If someone has a 222 transceiver FM use it. I found that inexpensive dis-cone antenna from Radio Shack to work very well on 2 and 222. It is not cut for 6 so a separate  antenna will work fine. If someone can cut a dis-cone for 6 than you have FM for that. Its worth the effort from the point of patience and  enjoying vhf. 

For your hf work I will advise you seriously on the following issue with your plan either way. I have found from experience that if you put your 80m dipole or 40m dipole too close to the ground you have some serious interference. It also will operate like an NTV antenna. (hope thats the correct spelling) Near inverse antenna where you will get great local operation and crappy distance operation. If possible try to set up several antennas with some separation between them. You don't want to have them interfering with each other. We had a 10m ant. interfering with 80m.

Now the pop-up would be your best choice from what I wrote earlier. It would be important to get the ends up as high as you can. you can still use the 25 foot tower with a rod on top of it for something else. 20 meter is bread and butter when its open so if there is a tri-bander thats in pieces to be slapped together than that might be a good choice.  I found with an HF dipole too close to the ground that the SWR shot up as well. 

For whats its worth--a 10m vertical would be good as an alternative if 10 is open. If 10 is open than there is a good chance that 6 is also. I remember when that happened one FD. 6 was open for hours.

remember that FD is a day of experimenting and trying things out for the what-if. I remember screwing about 20-30 feet of rigid conduit and setting up a crappy tower so I could have 2 meter FM going. The point being that we did it and it worked. I check my e-mail every few days if you need more info.\
73 and be safe

Greg KB3CKD  

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