#antennabuild — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

Darryl Cousins @[email protected] · 2026-08-06 · 00:32 UTC

Finally got around to building and hanging my 40m band antenna today. Two legs, one at 6.7m the other at 13.4m and a 4:1 balun in between.

First broad sweep (7.0-29.3 MHz) with the NanoVNA gave the following for the lowest points of the sweep (MHz / SWR):

9.67 / 1.62
13.46 / 2.31
16.14 / 1.38
23.94 / 2.84
29.3 / 1.39

I'll leave it there for now, because I'm neither sure what all that means, nor what steps I could take to improve those measurements. And I'm still digging a trench.

#HamRadio #AntennaBuild #SWR #NanoVNA

#hamradio #antennabuild #swr #nanovna

Darryl Cousins @[email protected] · 2026-06-08 · 04:41 UTC

As my antenna book* points out, before he starts losing me with impedance, elevation patterns and so forth, it is equally important to address the question "How do I keep the antenna structure from falling down?"

Practical. I'll start there.

Photo 2 shows a 7 or 8 metre power pole that sits around 3m off the street within our boundary line. Curious, but true, I can explain, partly with fact, partly with Occam's razor. That is the south-west corner.

Photo 1 shows a mast I have erected on the northern end of the house, pretty much the geographic centre of the ¼acre section.

I've figured around 23m between these two points.

The tip of the house mast is a little more that 6.5m off the ground, so I'm expecting to have my dipole around 18 feet off the ground. A fair goal, by my limited understanding (I'm still reading the book).

But, now, how do I get up that power pole to establish a fixing? .. I'll start:

1. cherry-picker, too costly
2. ladder, too fearful

#AntennaBuild #HamRadio

* Basic Antennas, Joel Hallas, W1ZR

#antennabuild #hamradio

VU3DXR @[email protected] · 2026-02-10 · 06:32 UTC

Shortened Inverted-V Antenna for 80 Meters (3.7 MHz) 💡

Looking for a compact solution for 80 m? Check out this practical guide to building a shortened Inverted-V antenna that performs great on 3.7 MHz! Perfect for limited space installations and DIY antenna builders. 🚀

👉 Read the full article here: https://vu3dxr.in/shortened-inverted-v-antenna-for-80-meters-3-700-mhz/

#HamRadio #80Meters #InvertedV #AntennaBuild #AmateurRadio #DIY