[Lowfer] Tuned Active Whips

[Les Rayburn]

Want to turn our discussion to active whips a bit. The best active whip that I ever owned was a remote tuned active whip, designed and built by Bill Bowers who was a “Lowfer” who lived in Oklahoma. Bill was kind enough to sell me one of his whip antennas during a visit to his shop just before he retired to Florida. 

The whip used litz wire for all the coils, and could be tuned remotely using a varactor. In the shack, it had a small, precision potentiometer for tuning. 

This active whip used an extremely high “Q” and low noise amplifier in combination to allow tuning from LF well into 160 Meters. It was an amazing antenna! Logged dozens of Lowfer beacons, and lots of MW DX with the antenna. Limited to a single channel, so it wouldn’t work well with an SDR—but if you had a specific target you were listening for, it was dynamite.  Unfortunately, it was lost by movers when we downsized to our current home. 

Does anyone have a copy of the schematic and parts list for this antenna? I believe it may have been published at some point in the Lowdown, but can’t recall for sure. I’d love to recreate it. 




73,

Les Rayburn, N1LF
121 Mayfair Park
Maylene, AL 35114
EM63nf

Member WTFDA, IRCA, NRC. Former CPC Chairman for NRC & IRCA. 

Elad FDM-S2 SDR, AirSpy SDR2, SDRPlay RSP-2 Pro, Sony XDR-F1HD [XDR Guy Modified], Dennon TU-1500RD, Sangean HDT-1X, Ray Dees RDS Decoders, Korner 9.2 Antenna, FM-6 Antenna, Kitz Technologies KT-501 Pre-amps, Quantum Phaser, Wellbrook ALA1530 Loop, Wellbrook Flag, Clifton Labs Active Whip. 

“Nothing but blues and Elvis, and somebody else’s favorite song…”