[HCARC] HF Antennas

Sat Aug 4 22:56:22 EDT 2012

Gary;

First, I would say you got a good deal.

It's a great start.

My motto for HF antennas, has always been KISS (keep it simple stupid). Of 
course, I'm not an HF DXer or contester any more. Years ago I was, but never 
had anything more than a triband Yagi for 10, 15 and 20 and inverted Vs for 
40 and 80. I even tried an inverted V on 160 but, for some reason, it didn't 
work. The others worked very well, however.

That was when I was in Maryland, and over 30 years ago. I did put up 
inverted Vs for 40 and 75 here about 15 years ago and they worked fine for 
what I was doing at the time - calling in on the AMSAT 75 meter net and 
working the balloon launch stations up near Dallas when they were launching 
balloons. Most of this was what has been referred to  as NVIS. I must admit 
to not being familiar with the term although I DO know what vertical 
incidence and critical frequency are. The critical frequency is the highest 
frequency that is returned straight back to Earth. The MUF or maximum usable 
frequency is generally about 3 times that, but goes out past the so-called 
skip zone.

You can put up half wave inverted Vs, or dipoles, for 40 and 80 at right 
angles to each other using one coax to feed both. And, you should not need 
an antenna tunner. You can begin with that and have a lot of fun getting you 
feet wet. Then, if you get interested in working greater and more DX, you 
can think about more complicated antennas.

I hope this helps.

73,

Bill, W3XO/5
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gary and Arlene Johnson" <qltfnish at omniglobal.net>
To: <HCARC at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2012 6:30 PM
Subject: [HCARC] 3rd try to get this back through

> Good answers from Kerry, Bob, and Don.
>
> First, let me explain something - About a month or so ago I went to an 
> estate sale here in Center Point where the guy having the estate sale was 
> selling a BUNCH of ham gear (1000's of tubes, meters, wire, antennas, etc) 
> that came from some 80+ year old Ham that had died within the last ?? 
> year(s) here in Kerrville.  Not knowing much (I am newbie) I "invested" a 
> little cash in some the stuff.  All told I have $40 invested in 2 of the 
> AS-2259 antennas, an RC-292 40+ foot whip antenna, a used G5RV antenna (or 
> maybe it's just a 102' dipole with ladder line), a new 500 foot roll of 14 
> gauge antenna wire, a working and almost new from the look of it Heathkit 
> oscilloscope, and one of the coil wire tuners that you see on tthe base of 
> a whip antenna.  Not a bad little haul for a $40 investment.  I virtually 
> have nothing invested in the antennas working or not.  My questions are 
> why can't they be made to work, what has to be done to make them work, we 
> can replace the copper dipoles wit
> h ones of different length, we can combine the Hard Coax in whatever 
> manner we want, we can do whatever to make it work and if it doesn't I'll 
> wrap it up and resell it for a profit on Ebay.  What I don't understand is 
> how some copper wire in one configuration doesn't perform much the same as 
> some other copper wire off the same roll (hypothetically).  I can't figure 
> out why if the wire itself doesn't have a different SWR/resonance 
> (assuming that both sections of copper wire had common charcteristics) 
> that it would be different after running it down one kind of coax vs 
> another kind of coax and if I were to just take the steel antenna mast 
> sections I have that are totally hollw, why couldn't I just run some low 
> swr coax through it and mount the antenna head on that.  REMEMBER - A 
> NEWBIE TALKING HERE!!!!
>
> Kerry - the "radiating Coax" on a Carolina Windom is 22 feet long and the 
> G5RV is 34.8 feet of 450 ohm window line.  Carolina Windom has a 4:1 balun 
> at the top of the Coax and a choke balun (I assume 1:1 at the bottom of 
> the 22 foot section).
>
> Don - thanks for the lead on wire, but I am if nothing else "wire rich", 
> plenty of 14 guage insulated and uninsulated, and at least 1900 feet of #6 
> copper insulated if I really want to go crazy.  I have another bunch 
> (about 1500 ft)  of insulated aluminum in a copper size equivalent of 00 
> and about 175 feet of actual uninsulated copper in 00.  If I had a radio 
> instead of so much wire that has been given to me, I'd be far better off.
>
> Something to consider - In one of my older Monitoring Times Magazines (or 
> at least I think it was in MT) there was a article about a group of Hams 
> that used to get together either every Wed or every other Wed or maybe 
> once a month in Mesa, AZ and they would get to the park early and erect 
> antennas and play with them.  That's where I came up with the 2 lawn 
> chairs on a T mast idea.  They bring some donuts and coffee, a few radios, 
> some batteries and associated equipment and try out weird ideas for 
> antennas.  Once the weather cools down a bit, it might be fun to find a 
> park and go there (with the club banner of course) and try out antennas. 
> We get to have fun, learn something (at least some of us would) and let 
> the public see what Hams can do with funny antennas.  One guy in that 
> group brought one of the square clothlines and erected it on a mast and 
> proceeded to transit.  Another guy put up an umbrella.
>
> Gary J
> N5BAA
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