[Lowfer] LowFER Grabber and Converter

[Douglas D. Williams]

Good points, Ed. Not sure how readily available those "push up" masts are
nowadays. That was the method I used on my one attempt at a Lowfer beacon.
The one I purchased was galvanized and came with the guy rings. Since the
mast itself is the antenna, care must be taken to ensure that the sections
are electrically joined.

I see a lot of talk these days about those all band 47 foot vertical
antennas for HF. It looks like they are usually made from aluminum tubing
with tapering sections that fit within each other and are held together by
overlapping them then squeezing them together with hose clamps. It seems to
me that those would make an ideal base loaded LF vertical. The capacity hat
would require some thought. I made mine out of 1/4" aluminum tubing and
attached them to the top of the mast with "L" brackets. It folded up like
an umbrella the first heavy snow we had. The "L" brackets just weren't
strong enough to bear the weight.

D.

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 3:29 PM, Ed Phillips <evp at pacbell.net> wrote:

> No one seems to have mentioned a guyed tower using TV push-up towers or
> mast extensions [I assume they're still available].  With a little help
> it's easy to get up 30 feet or so.  You need an excellent insulator at
> the base and guys have successfully used glass bottles although that
> could be ifffy.  The antenna is always the hardest part of any LF
> station and the loading coil comes next. True for 'commercial' guys
> too.  Watts' "LF Radio Engineering' states somewhere that at least half
> of the total cost of a serious LF or VLF [down to 10 kHz] is in the
> antenna and loading coil.  I've gotten several guys on the air in the
> old days with 'push-up' TV masts  and home wound loading coils.  Ground
> wires run to water pipes aren't ideal but they're easy and a quick way
> of getting going.
>
> Ed
>
>
> On 9/18/2012 11:15 AM, KD7JYK DM09 wrote:
> > "It would be wonderful to have at least one beacon from each state."
> >
> > I have a kit I bought form a fellow a few years ago.  I can make the
> time,
> > money and space aren't the problem, building a decent antenna for LowFER,
> > THAT'S my problem...  I don't have equipment to test it, and wouldn't
> know
> > how to model it.
> >
> > Kurt, Nevada
> >
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