[Hallicrafters] Antenna issues and such

[Mike Everette]

All right... 

If you have read my posts, you will note that I didn't say it only had to be done one way.  I said there is a right way to do things.  

If you do things that fly in the face of the fundamental laws of electricity and physics, I said, they may have unintended consequences that are not good; and those who do so proceed at their risk.  With proper understanding and a sound knowledge base, you can take "the ideal" and adapt it to your circumstances.  That's what experimentation is about.  That's how you learn.

But holding pseudoscience, urban legend, wishful thinking, etc up as something that can be counted upon... that's not good.  

Now, I have worked some pretty good DX on 6 meters using about 5 feet of clip leads stuck in the coax connector of an FM rig, when I observed a phenomenal band opening one afternoon while the radio was on the workbench away from a "proper" antenna.  I have worked over 2000 miles on 2 meters using a ground plane made from an SO-239 and five pieces of coathanger wire.  But the antenna theory here was actually sound; a quarter wave, fed at a low impedance point by a low-impedance source.

I have built a superheterodyne receiver on a breadboard, using cardboard tubing for coil forms, and even made my own resistors using carbon from batteries stuffed into ditchbank reeds' and a similar transmitter with the VFO tank stuffed into a coffee can (which makes a pretty darn fine enclosure), and Coke bottles for insulators.  It worked pretty well, even loading a single-wire-fed Windom that was more-or-less a half wave long on 40 meters, about 15 feet off the ground.  It even worked quite a few Europeans.

But when I tried loading a half wave dipole on the even harmonics, using ANY transmitter, I found out that it does not do so well.  Not well at all.  I made a contact or two but they were few and far between; and it was frustrating.  Why?  I did some studying.  I did some experimenting.  I've built, used and learned from a LOT of HF antennas, both fixed and mobile.  And I'll tell you a secret.

The experts  -- those JERKS (?) -- have it right.  That stuff in all those books is true.

It does not HAVE to be perfect; but you do need to try to conform to the science as close as possible if you want decent results.

In an emergency, or if you are being chased by the Gestapo, Kempeitai or KGB,  you do whatever you can with whatever you have, however you can do it.  No argument there.  ANY RF out in such circumstances is better than nothing.  

Now I really have said all I'm going to say.  Please take your flame throwers back to eHam.net !

In conclusion, I would also encourage you to obtain a copy of "A Course in Radio Fundamentals" or "Understanding Amateur Radio," both by George Grammer (yeah, he's one of them EEEE-vill ARRL folks) and do some reading, and experimenting.  You might enjoy it.

And yes, I would be hard put to understand how the US Military is using trees for antennas.  Sounds a lot like pseudoscience.  But I'd like to know more about it.  Please send me a link or two or three.

73

Mike
WA4DLF


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