#antennas — Public Fediverse posts

Are you a DXer?

Ham Radio Outside the Box received this interesting email from DX Marathon Ambassador · Chile, Luis Soto Neira CA6SNT.

If you’ve been on the air working DX this year, you almost certainly already have a 2026 DX Marathon score without knowing it.

I help promote the DX Marathon, and I’m trying to get hams from more countries taking part. Would you join us? It’s free, and there’s no registration anywhere.

Everything happens at entry.dxmarathon.com — nothing needs to be sent to me. You upload an ADIF file from your logging program there. It can be your entire log, all years included: only 2026 QSOs count and including others does no harm, so there’s no need to filter it or sort it by country or zone.

The site then asks two or three questions about power and antenna, and those questions are part of the submission: if you only upload the file and stop there, your entry never arrives. Use the standard category — the Challenge is a separate entry that counts your entities and zones band by band, so leave it aside for now.

No confirmation email is sent, so check it yourself at entry.dxmarathon.com/dxm/entries, where your callsign appears within a few minutes. Your DXCC entities and zones are shown at entry.dxmarathon.com/leaderboard — the sum of the two is your score.

You can upload again as many times as you wish through January 5th, 2027, and only the last submission counts. More details on www.dxmarathon.com and on the DX Marathon’s QRZ page, W4DXM.
100% of participants get a certificate with their accomplishments.

If you use two callsigns, or if you operate remotely or from more than one location, there are two conditions worth knowing: dxmarathon.com/rules/2026.

Thanks, and see you on the bands.
73,

Luis Soto Neira
CA6SNT
DX Marathon Ambassador · Chile
Email: [email protected]
WhatsApp: +56 9 6761 4461
Valdivia, Chile · FF30JD · CQ 12 / ITU 14

And here is another interesting DX related message received at Ham Radio Outside the Box from the Amateur Radio Association of Serbia:

Contest Invitation

Dear contesters,

We invite you to participate in YUDX Contest 2026.

The contest will be held on the last full weekend of September,
i.e. Saturday at 12:00 UTC up to Sunday at 11:59 UTC (September 26–27, 2026).

More information

Let’s meet in YUDX Contest 2026,
YUDX Contest Committee

Accidental DX!

I know many hams specialize in working DX. To be successful requires a powerful station (well maybe at least 100 watts) and a decent antenna – like a steerable beam. It also requires a lot of patience and/or a lot of skill. My own personal operating style involves sitting out in the Big Blue Sky Shack with a QRP CW radio pumping 5 watts or less into a simple wire antenna. Ain’t gonna cut it for DX yeah? Well, not so fast … I was once out at a local park setting up for a POTA activation when I realized I had left my antenna at home!

A decision had to be made. Abort? or Improvise, Adapt, Overcome! Luckily I had 10 meters of wire in my truck so I thought “dipole!”. I cut the wire in half and improvised a terrible, jungle-style dipole. No center connector, just wire wrapped around the coax connector.

I didn’t have a pole with me and the surrounding trees were very short, more like bushes in fact. I found a stick to support the center of the dipole about 1 meter above ground and threw the ends of the wire into the bushes about two and half meters above ground. Maybe this will get enough contacts for a POTA activation if I am really lucky and the propagation gods are in a good mood, was the highly optimistic thought swimming around in my head.

The park location was right on the shore of one of the Great Lakes so I didn’t even have the advantage of height. At the top of a mountain I could probably get away with an arrangement like this, but less than a couple hundred meters above sea level?

Well maybe blind optimism is all we need some days. I made the 10 contacts required to validate an activation, and then some. Among my contacts were two DX stations from way over the Atlantic Ocean. Big station? Piff! Beam antenna? Piff!

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #DX #OutdoorOps

TechTip #3 Improving the “Titanic” 40m field expedient backpack portable antenna

TechTips on Ham Radio Outside the Box are brief posts of a technical nature.

Back in October 2024 Ham Radio Outside the Box introduced an interesting design for a compact, field portable antenna for the 40m band. Named the “Titanic”, it was a T-antenna similar in appearance to the one used on the tragically famous ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 during its maiden voyage. I recommend reading the original post to get the background information.

The original Titanic antenna design

Recently I was wondering whether there is some way to improve the design by eliminating the loading coil without sacrificing the portability of the “Titanic”. It is a very simple design in which a shortened vertical element is top-loaded with two sloping wires acting as a capacitance hat. The vertical element can be supported on a short telescopic fiberglass pole.

There are two possibilities to consider: increase the length of the vertical element or, increase the length of the top hat wires. Or maybe both. After some experimenting I chose both options. Here are the design changes I implemented.

The revised “Titanic” antenna’s sloping top hat wires are supported on trekking poles, although raising the ends higher does improve the SWR. In order to preserve the rapid deployment feature of this field antenna the trekking pole support option, at about 4 feet, worked sufficiently well for me. The SWR seen by the radio at the far end of 25 feet of RG-58U coax is around 1.2:1.

Note the very compact size of this antenna. It is a stealthy option when operating in busy locations like public parks. It uses far less space than a 40m dipole and, if the dipole is erected as an inverted-V, it will exhibit the same omnidirectional radiation pattern, but perhaps with a lower take-off angle.

The “Titanic” should be considered an experimental antenna since I have not subjected it to field testing in a live-fire RF exercise yet, but it is a promising design that others have spoken well of (references available in the original post here on Ham Radio Outside the Box). If you try this antenna please let me know what kind of results you get.

UPDATE: The Titanic’s status has now been upgraded to operational. It is no longer an experimental antenna following a successful morning operating session on 40m.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Portable

TechTip #3 Improving the “Titanic” 40m field expedient backpack portable antenna

TechTips on Ham Radio Outside the Box are brief posts of a technical nature.

Back in October 2024 Ham Radio Outside the Box introduced an interesting design for a compact, field portable antenna for the 40m band. Named the “Titanic”, it was a T-antenna similar in appearance to the one used on the tragically famous ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 during its maiden voyage. I recommend reading the original post to get the background information.

The original Titanic antenna design

Recently I was wondering whether there is some way to improve the design by eliminating the loading coil without sacrificing the portability of the “Titanic”. It is a very simple design in which a shortened vertical element is top-loaded with two sloping wires acting as a capacitance hat. The vertical element can be supported on a short telescopic fiberglass pole.

There are two possibilities to consider: increase the length of the vertical element or, increase the length of the top hat wires. Or maybe both. After some experimenting I chose both options. Here are the design changes I implemented.

The revised “Titanic” antenna’s sloping top hat wires are supported on trekking poles, although raising the ends higher does improve the SWR. In order to preserve the rapid deployment feature of this field antenna the trekking pole support option, at about 4 feet, worked sufficiently well for me. The SWR seen by the radio at the far end of 25 feet of RG-58U coax is around 1.2:1.

Note the very compact size of this antenna. It is a stealthy option when operating in busy locations like public parks. It uses far less space than a 40m dipole and, if the dipole is erected as an inverted-V, it will exhibit the same omnidirectional radiation pattern, but perhaps with a lower take-off angle.

The “Titanic” should be considered an experimental antenna since I have not subjected it to field testing in a live-fire RF exercise yet, but it is a promising design that others have spoken well of (references available in the original post here on Ham Radio Outside the Box). If you try this antenna please let me know what kind of results you get.

UPDATE: The Titanic’s status has now been upgraded to operational. It is no longer an experimental antenna following a successful morning operating session on 40m.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Portable

TechTip #3 Improving the “Titanic” 40m field expedient backpack portable antenna

TechTips on Ham Radio Outside the Box are brief posts of a technical nature.

Back in October 2024 Ham Radio Outside the Box introduced an interesting design for a compact, field portable antenna for the 40m band. Named the “Titanic”, it was a T-antenna similar in appearance to the one used on the tragically famous ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 during its maiden voyage. I recommend reading the original post to get the background information.

The original Titanic antenna design

Recently I was wondering whether there is some way to improve the design by eliminating the loading coil without sacrificing the portability of the “Titanic”. It is a very simple design in which a shortened vertical element is top-loaded with two sloping wires acting as a capacitance hat. The vertical element can be supported on a short telescopic fiberglass pole.

There are two possibilities to consider: increase the length of the vertical element or, increase the length of the top hat wires. Or maybe both. After some experimenting I chose both options. Here are the design changes I implemented.

The revised “Titanic” antenna’s sloping top hat wires are supported on trekking poles, although raising the ends higher does improve the SWR. In order to preserve the rapid deployment feature of this field antenna the trekking pole support option, at about 4 feet, worked sufficiently well for me. The SWR seen by the radio at the far end of 25 feet of RG-58U coax is around 1.2:1.

Note the very compact size of this antenna. It is a stealthy option when operating in busy locations like public parks. It uses far less space than a 40m dipole and, if the dipole is erected as an inverted-V, it will exhibit the same omnidirectional radiation pattern, but perhaps with a lower take-off angle.

The “Titanic” should be considered an experimental antenna since I have not subjected it to field testing in a live-fire RF exercise yet, but it is a promising design that others have spoken well of (references available in the original post here on Ham Radio Outside the Box). If you try this antenna please let me know what kind of results you get.

UPDATE: The Titanic’s status has now been upgraded to operational. It is no longer an experimental antenna following a successful morning operating session on 40m.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Portable

TechTip #3 Improving the “Titanic” 40m field expedient backpack portable antenna

TechTips on Ham Radio Outside the Box are brief posts of a technical nature.

Back in October 2024 Ham Radio Outside the Box introduced an interesting design for a compact, field portable antenna for the 40m band. Named the “Titanic”, it was a T-antenna similar in appearance to the one used on the tragically famous ship that sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912 during its maiden voyage. I recommend reading the original post to get the background information.

The original Titanic antenna design

Recently I was wondering whether there is some way to improve the design by eliminating the loading coil without sacrificing the portability of the “Titanic”. It is a very simple design in which a shortened vertical element is top-loaded with two sloping wires acting as a capacitance hat. The vertical element can be supported on a short telescopic fiberglass pole.

There are two possibilities to consider: increase the length of the vertical element or, increase the length of the top hat wires. Or maybe both. After some experimenting I chose both options. Here are the design changes I implemented.

The revised “Titanic” antenna’s sloping top hat wires are supported on trekking poles, although raising the ends higher does improve the SWR. In order to preserve the rapid deployment feature of this field antenna the trekking pole support option, at about 4 feet, worked sufficiently well for me. The SWR seen by the radio at the far end of 25 feet of RG-58U coax is around 1.2:1.

Note the very compact size of this antenna. It is a stealthy option when operating in busy locations like public parks. It uses far less space than a 40m dipole and, if the dipole is erected as an inverted-V, it will exhibit the same omnidirectional radiation pattern, but perhaps with a lower take-off angle.

The “Titanic” should be considered an experimental antenna since I have not subjected it to field testing in a live-fire RF exercise yet, but it is a promising design that others have spoken well of (references available in the original post here on Ham Radio Outside the Box). If you try this antenna please let me know what kind of results you get.

UPDATE: The Titanic’s status has now been upgraded to operational. It is no longer an experimental antenna following a successful morning operating session on 40m.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Portable

No loading coils, no top-hats, no transformers, no ununs, no baluns, no tuners, no radials – just the perfect antenna?

Just imagine, if you could get rid of all those lossy loading coils, impedance transformers, ununs, baluns, tuners and ground radial trip wires. What do you have left? Could it be the most perfect, the ultimate, 100% efficient, dream antenna? Yes, yes; it’s a dream! But back in the real world …

I spent most of the day recently, sweltering under a hot sun (suck it up John, the snow will be back before you know it) deploying all my recent experimental antennas, comparing results. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of wire, whips, cores and coils, seeking “the one”, the best one, the antenna that will outperform expectations and fill the log book with DX galore.

Conditions that day were far less than perfect. Some stations I called faded away before the QSO was complete. Others couldn’t hear my 5000 mW signal at all. QSOs came along every few minutes of calling but most involved a struggle to squeeze enough microamps through my antenna to exchange signal reports and QTH. Every one of the antennas I tried bore the same result – until, out of desperation, I erected an antenna I had been keeping as an emergency backup. Suddenly the bands seemed alive; could this be “the one”?

We live on a Goldilocks planet

The Earth might be what astronomers call a “Goldilocks” planet – a planet with a breathable atmosphere, that is just the right distance from a star to maintain temperatures compatible with human life. Such planets are rare in the universe. Of course, there are areas on our planet that don’t meet the Goldilocks criteria and I’m sure Canada must be one of those areas. On a snowy, freezing cold day in February ain’t nothin’ gonna convince me I live on a Goldilocks planet.

But Goldilocks has a flaw – it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. I am sure you are wondering why this narrative has drifted off the topic of ham radio and into astronomy. Explanation coming. Maybe there would be all kinds of downsides to a planet that did have good electrical conductivity, but building antennas would not be one of them.

As a consequence we have to go to a lot of trouble to compensate for the Earth’s poor conductivity. One of my CW buddies has a full-size quarter-wave top-band vertical. It’s a monster of a vertical antenna and requires hundreds of ground radials to work. I am more of a field portable operator who likes to work with simple wire antennas. Something that can be deployed rapidly out in the field and taken down again just as quickly. I have used plenty of antennas that have ground radials and sometimes even had pleasing success with them. But, throwing just a few wires on the ground is inefficient, and when you are a QRP operator you don’t have watts to spare.

So, to sum up, sorry Goldilocks, but you can’t be part of my antenna; I need wire in the air, not on the ground. Before you reach for the comments section to remind me that the ground is always part of an antenna, yes you are correct. In fact even the ground thousands of kilometers away affects our antennas. Our signals, of course, bounce their way around the planet between the Earth and its ionosphere. And even a good antenna, on a day when the propagation gods are displeased, may be disappointing.

“The One”

Simplest feedpoint arrangement

How about a simple wire antenna that is one half wavelength long, fed in the center. You could call it a Center-Fed Half Wave (CFHW) but a simpler way to describe it is with the word “dipole”. I have never been a fan of dipoles in the past. First, they occupy a lot of space. A flat top dipole requires three supports which takes longer to erect. Feeding dipoles in the center implies a long length of coax which may lead to losses.

During a field deployment there are a couple of ways to mitigate these issues. If a dipole is erected as an Inverted V the horizontal space is reduced and only a single support is required. The radiation pattern changes from bi-directional to omni-directional, but maybe that’s sometimes a good thing. The ends of the dipole can be attached to the top of trekking poles, or simply pegged into the ground via a length of cord.

The long coax issue can be overcome using a sleeve dipole. A sleeve dipole comprises one quarter wavelength of coax and one quarter wavelength of wire. It is physically fed at one end, but the electrical feedpoint is in the center where the coax inner conductor is joined to the wire. The coax acts as part of the feedline while the outer surface of the coax braid forms a quarter wave element due to the skin effect.

There is a variant of the sleeve dipole called the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole (OCFSD) which has been discussed here on Ham Radio Outside the Box in the past. The one I built supports multiple bands, but requires a 4:1 unun at the electrical feedpoint and a tuner in the shack. But, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Another idea is to feed the dipole in the center using Open Wire Line (“OWL”). Now it becomes what is known as a “doublet”. OWL has very low loss, even over long runs. A doublet can support multiple bands with the aid of a tuner. But, again, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Doesn’t a simple coax fed dipole require a balun at the feedpoint?

Technically, yes it does. If the dipole is perfectly symmetrical it is a balanced antenna. Feeding it with coax creates an interface between a balanced antenna and an unbalanced coax feedline. There is a possibility of common mode currents flowing back down the outer surface of the coax braid causing problems at the radio end.

Here we can get away with cheating a little. QRP operators have the advantage that any common mode current caused by lack of balance in the antenna, or by pickup of signal in the feedline will be very small and probably dissipate before reaching the radio. This little hack will probably not work at higher power.

But don’t you have to erect a dipole a half wavelength above ground?

No. Nein, nicht, non. For low angle radiation aimed at DX then, yes, erecting the feedpoint up high is definitely an advantage. But those of us activating or hunting any of the now numerous xOTA programs don’t have to follow that rule. I have had success with a 20m dipole with the apex at only 16ft. The angle of radiation is very high, but there is enough signal at lower angles to make intra-continental contacts. Similarly, my 40m dipole is targeted toward contacts in the eastern half of North America.

So simple dipoles it is then, or …

My antenna attention span can best be defined using quantum physics, i.e the science of things that are infinitesimally small. But for now I will be using simple wire dipoles for my field operations. Am I being too strict in my definition of “the one” antenna? Many a good contact has been made with miserably compromised whips, wands and wires. Perhaps my next venture will be a revisit with the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole to explore how it compares with a pure, unadulterated dipole. Stay tuned.

Trust me I am a X-spurt

No really, but with the explanation that “X” is an unknown quantity and, according to the American Dictionary of the English Language, “spurt” is “a sudden forcible gush or jet” or, put another way: a short burst of energy. I have also heard “spurt” defined as “a drip under pressure”. So you can place whatever value you wish on my “X-spurtise”; it is based on endless tinkering and experimentation. I often venture down blind alleys and produce results that are worth the product of one-squared and infinity to the power of minus one. Occasionally I may also accidentally stumble on a good idea; I’ll let you be the judge.

Gallery

Note the simple feedpoint arrangement and the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method by which the dipole is secured to the tip of the Spiderbeam pole. Ham-brew guy ring and paracord guys with stopper knots at the top and arrow knots at the bottom Ham-brew Spiderbeam base support allows it to stand upright while guy lines are deployed. Also prevents bottom of Spiderbeam from slipping under tension Simple peg in the ground secures the guy lines. Replace with a flat piece of board buried “dead man” style in sand or snow. You may be carrying trekking poles anyway so why not use them to support the dipole ends. Note the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Ground #OutdoorOps #Portable

No loading coils, no top-hats, no transformers, no ununs, no baluns, no tuners, no radials – just the perfect antenna?

Just imagine, if you could get rid of all those lossy loading coils, impedance transformers, ununs, baluns, tuners and ground radial trip wires. What do you have left? Could it be the most perfect, the ultimate, 100% efficient, dream antenna? Yes, yes; it’s a dream! But back in the real world …

I spent most of the day recently, sweltering under a hot sun (suck it up John, the snow will be back before you know it) deploying all my recent experimental antennas, comparing results. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of wire, whips, cores and coils, seeking “the one”, the best one, the antenna that will outperform expectations and fill the log book with DX galore.

Conditions that day were far less than perfect. Some stations I called faded away before the QSO was complete. Others couldn’t hear my 5000 mW signal at all. QSOs came along every few minutes of calling but most involved a struggle to squeeze enough microamps through my antenna to exchange signal reports and QTH. Every one of the antennas I tried bore the same result – until, out of desperation, I erected an antenna I had been keeping as an emergency backup. Suddenly the bands seemed alive; could this be “the one”?

We live on a Goldilocks planet

The Earth might be what astronomers call a “Goldilocks” planet – a planet with a breathable atmosphere, that is just the right distance from a star to maintain temperatures compatible with human life. Such planets are rare in the universe. Of course, there are areas on our planet that don’t meet the Goldilocks criteria and I’m sure Canada must be one of those areas. On a snowy, freezing cold day in February ain’t nothin’ gonna convince me I live on a Goldilocks planet.

But Goldilocks has a flaw – it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. I am sure you are wondering why this narrative has drifted off the topic of ham radio and into astronomy. Explanation coming. Maybe there would be all kinds of downsides to a planet that did have good electrical conductivity, but building antennas would not be one of them.

As a consequence we have to go to a lot of trouble to compensate for the Earth’s poor conductivity. One of my CW buddies has a full-size quarter-wave top-band vertical. It’s a monster of a vertical antenna and requires hundreds of ground radials to work. I am more of a field portable operator who likes to work with simple wire antennas. Something that can be deployed rapidly out in the field and taken down again just as quickly. I have used plenty of antennas that have ground radials and sometimes even had pleasing success with them. But, throwing just a few wires on the ground is inefficient, and when you are a QRP operator you don’t have watts to spare.

So, to sum up, sorry Goldilocks, but you can’t be part of my antenna; I need wire in the air, not on the ground. Before you reach for the comments section to remind me that the ground is always part of an antenna, yes you are correct. In fact even the ground thousands of kilometers away affects our antennas. Our signals, of course, bounce their way around the planet between the Earth and its ionosphere. And even a good antenna, on a day when the propagation gods are displeased, may be disappointing.

“The One”

Simplest feedpoint arrangement

How about a simple wire antenna that is one half wavelength long, fed in the center. You could call it a Center-Fed Half Wave (CFHW) but a simpler way to describe it is with the word “dipole”. I have never been a fan of dipoles in the past. First, they occupy a lot of space. A flat top dipole requires three supports which takes longer to erect. Feeding dipoles in the center implies a long length of coax which may lead to losses.

During a field deployment there are a couple of ways to mitigate these issues. If a dipole is erected as an Inverted V the horizontal space is reduced and only a single support is required. The radiation pattern changes from bi-directional to omni-directional, but maybe that’s sometimes a good thing. The ends of the dipole can be attached to the top of trekking poles, or simply pegged into the ground via a length of cord.

The long coax issue can be overcome using a sleeve dipole. A sleeve dipole comprises one quarter wavelength of coax and one quarter wavelength of wire. It is physically fed at one end, but the electrical feedpoint is in the center where the coax inner conductor is joined to the wire. The coax acts as part of the feedline while the outer surface of the coax braid forms a quarter wave element due to the skin effect.

There is a variant of the sleeve dipole called the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole (OCFSD) which has been discussed here on Ham Radio Outside the Box in the past. The one I built supports multiple bands, but requires a 4:1 unun at the electrical feedpoint and a tuner in the shack. But, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Another idea is to feed the dipole in the center using Open Wire Line (“OWL”). Now it becomes what is known as a “doublet”. OWL has very low loss, even over long runs. A doublet can support multiple bands with the aid of a tuner. But, again, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Doesn’t a simple coax fed dipole require a balun at the feedpoint?

Technically, yes it does. If the dipole is perfectly symmetrical it is a balanced antenna. Feeding it with coax creates an interface between a balanced antenna and an unbalanced coax feedline. There is a possibility of common mode currents flowing back down the outer surface of the coax braid causing problems at the radio end.

Here we can get away with cheating a little. QRP operators have the advantage that any common mode current caused by lack of balance in the antenna, or by pickup of signal in the feedline will be very small and probably dissipate before reaching the radio. This little hack will probably not work at higher power.

But don’t you have to erect a dipole a half wavelength above ground?

No. Nein, nicht, non. For low angle radiation aimed at DX then, yes, erecting the feedpoint up high is definitely an advantage. But those of us activating or hunting any of the now numerous xOTA programs don’t have to follow that rule. I have had success with a 20m dipole with the apex at only 16ft. The angle of radiation is very high, but there is enough signal at lower angles to make intra-continental contacts. Similarly, my 40m dipole is targeted toward contacts in the eastern half of North America.

So simple dipoles it is then, or …

My antenna attention span can best be defined using quantum physics, i.e the science of things that are infinitesimally small. But for now I will be using simple wire dipoles for my field operations. Am I being too strict in my definition of “the one” antenna? Many a good contact has been made with miserably compromised whips, wands and wires. Perhaps my next venture will be a revisit with the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole to explore how it compares with a pure, unadulterated dipole. Stay tuned.

Trust me I am a X-spurt

No really, but with the explanation that “X” is an unknown quantity and, according to the American Dictionary of the English Language, “spurt” is “a sudden forcible gush or jet” or, put another way: a short burst of energy. I have also heard “spurt” defined as “a drip under pressure”. So you can place whatever value you wish on my “X-spurtise”; it is based on endless tinkering and experimentation. I often venture down blind alleys and produce results that are worth the product of one-squared and infinity to the power of minus one. Occasionally I may also accidentally stumble on a good idea; I’ll let you be the judge.

Gallery

Note the simple feedpoint arrangement and the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method by which the dipole is secured to the tip of the Spiderbeam pole. Ham-brew guy ring and paracord guys with stopper knots at the top and arrow knots at the bottom Ham-brew Spiderbeam base support allows it to stand upright while guy lines are deployed. Also prevents bottom of Spiderbeam from slipping under tension Simple peg in the ground secures the guy lines. Replace with a flat piece of board buried “dead man” style in sand or snow. You may be carrying trekking poles anyway so why not use them to support the dipole ends. Note the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Ground #OutdoorOps #Portable

No loading coils, no top-hats, no transformers, no ununs, no baluns, no tuners, no radials – just the perfect antenna?

Just imagine, if you could get rid of all those lossy loading coils, impedance transformers, ununs, baluns, tuners and ground radial trip wires. What do you have left? Could it be the most perfect, the ultimate, 100% efficient, dream antenna? Yes, yes; it’s a dream! But back in the real world …

I spent most of the day recently, sweltering under a hot sun (suck it up John, the snow will be back before you know it) deploying all my recent experimental antennas, comparing results. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of wire, whips, cores and coils, seeking “the one”, the best one, the antenna that will outperform expectations and fill the log book with DX galore.

Conditions that day were far less than perfect. Some stations I called faded away before the QSO was complete. Others couldn’t hear my 5000 mW signal at all. QSOs came along every few minutes of calling but most involved a struggle to squeeze enough microamps through my antenna to exchange signal reports and QTH. Every one of the antennas I tried bore the same result – until, out of desperation, I erected an antenna I had been keeping as an emergency backup. Suddenly the bands seemed alive; could this be “the one”?

We live on a Goldilocks planet

The Earth might be what astronomers call a “Goldilocks” planet – a planet with a breathable atmosphere, that is just the right distance from a star to maintain temperatures compatible with human life. Such planets are rare in the universe. Of course, there are areas on our planet that don’t meet the Goldilocks criteria and I’m sure Canada must be one of those areas. On a snowy, freezing cold day in February ain’t nothin’ gonna convince me I live on a Goldilocks planet.

But Goldilocks has a flaw – it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. I am sure you are wondering why this narrative has drifted off the topic of ham radio and into astronomy. Explanation coming. Maybe there would be all kinds of downsides to a planet that did have good electrical conductivity, but building antennas would not be one of them.

As a consequence we have to go to a lot of trouble to compensate for the Earth’s poor conductivity. One of my CW buddies has a full-size quarter-wave top-band vertical. It’s a monster of a vertical antenna and requires hundreds of ground radials to work. I am more of a field portable operator who likes to work with simple wire antennas. Something that can be deployed rapidly out in the field and taken down again just as quickly. I have used plenty of antennas that have ground radials and sometimes even had pleasing success with them. But, throwing just a few wires on the ground is inefficient, and when you are a QRP operator you don’t have watts to spare.

So, to sum up, sorry Goldilocks, but you can’t be part of my antenna; I need wire in the air, not on the ground. Before you reach for the comments section to remind me that the ground is always part of an antenna, yes you are correct. In fact even the ground thousands of kilometers away affects our antennas. Our signals, of course, bounce their way around the planet between the Earth and its ionosphere. And even a good antenna, on a day when the propagation gods are displeased, may be disappointing.

“The One”

Simplest feedpoint arrangement

How about a simple wire antenna that is one half wavelength long, fed in the center. You could call it a Center-Fed Half Wave (CFHW) but a simpler way to describe it is with the word “dipole”. I have never been a fan of dipoles in the past. First, they occupy a lot of space. A flat top dipole requires three supports which takes longer to erect. Feeding dipoles in the center implies a long length of coax which may lead to losses.

During a field deployment there are a couple of ways to mitigate these issues. If a dipole is erected as an Inverted V the horizontal space is reduced and only a single support is required. The radiation pattern changes from bi-directional to omni-directional, but maybe that’s sometimes a good thing. The ends of the dipole can be attached to the top of trekking poles, or simply pegged into the ground via a length of cord.

The long coax issue can be overcome using a sleeve dipole. A sleeve dipole comprises one quarter wavelength of coax and one quarter wavelength of wire. It is physically fed at one end, but the electrical feedpoint is in the center where the coax inner conductor is joined to the wire. The coax acts as part of the feedline while the outer surface of the coax braid forms a quarter wave element due to the skin effect.

There is a variant of the sleeve dipole called the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole (OCFSD) which has been discussed here on Ham Radio Outside the Box in the past. The one I built supports multiple bands, but requires a 4:1 unun at the electrical feedpoint and a tuner in the shack. But, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Another idea is to feed the dipole in the center using Open Wire Line (“OWL”). Now it becomes what is known as a “doublet”. OWL has very low loss, even over long runs. A doublet can support multiple bands with the aid of a tuner. But, again, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Doesn’t a simple coax fed dipole require a balun at the feedpoint?

Technically, yes it does. If the dipole is perfectly symmetrical it is a balanced antenna. Feeding it with coax creates an interface between a balanced antenna and an unbalanced coax feedline. There is a possibility of common mode currents flowing back down the outer surface of the coax braid causing problems at the radio end.

Here we can get away with cheating a little. QRP operators have the advantage that any common mode current caused by lack of balance in the antenna, or by pickup of signal in the feedline will be very small and probably dissipate before reaching the radio. This little hack will probably not work at higher power.

But don’t you have to erect a dipole a half wavelength above ground?

No. Nein, nicht, non. For low angle radiation aimed at DX then, yes, erecting the feedpoint up high is definitely an advantage. But those of us activating or hunting any of the now numerous xOTA programs don’t have to follow that rule. I have had success with a 20m dipole with the apex at only 16ft. The angle of radiation is very high, but there is enough signal at lower angles to make intra-continental contacts. Similarly, my 40m dipole is targeted toward contacts in the eastern half of North America.

So simple dipoles it is then, or …

My antenna attention span can best be defined using quantum physics, i.e the science of things that are infinitesimally small. But for now I will be using simple wire dipoles for my field operations. Am I being too strict in my definition of “the one” antenna? Many a good contact has been made with miserably compromised whips, wands and wires. Perhaps my next venture will be a revisit with the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole to explore how it compares with a pure, unadulterated dipole. Stay tuned.

Trust me I am a X-spurt

No really, but with the explanation that “X” is an unknown quantity and, according to the American Dictionary of the English Language, “spurt” is “a sudden forcible gush or jet” or, put another way: a short burst of energy. I have also heard “spurt” defined as “a drip under pressure”. So you can place whatever value you wish on my “X-spurtise”; it is based on endless tinkering and experimentation. I often venture down blind alleys and produce results that are worth the product of one-squared and infinity to the power of minus one. Occasionally I may also accidentally stumble on a good idea; I’ll let you be the judge.

Gallery

Note the simple feedpoint arrangement and the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method by which the dipole is secured to the tip of the Spiderbeam pole. Ham-brew guy ring and paracord guys with stopper knots at the top and arrow knots at the bottom Ham-brew Spiderbeam base support allows it to stand upright while guy lines are deployed. Also prevents bottom of Spiderbeam from slipping under tension Simple peg in the ground secures the guy lines. Replace with a flat piece of board buried “dead man” style in sand or snow. You may be carrying trekking poles anyway so why not use them to support the dipole ends. Note the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Ground #OutdoorOps #Portable

No loading coils, no top-hats, no transformers, no ununs, no baluns, no tuners, no radials – just the perfect antenna?

Just imagine, if you could get rid of all those lossy loading coils, impedance transformers, ununs, baluns, tuners and ground radial trip wires. What do you have left? Could it be the most perfect, the ultimate, 100% efficient, dream antenna? Yes, yes; it’s a dream! But back in the real world …

I spent most of the day recently, sweltering under a hot sun (suck it up John, the snow will be back before you know it) deploying all my recent experimental antennas, comparing results. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of wire, whips, cores and coils, seeking “the one”, the best one, the antenna that will outperform expectations and fill the log book with DX galore.

Conditions that day were far less than perfect. Some stations I called faded away before the QSO was complete. Others couldn’t hear my 5000 mW signal at all. QSOs came along every few minutes of calling but most involved a struggle to squeeze enough microamps through my antenna to exchange signal reports and QTH. Every one of the antennas I tried bore the same result – until, out of desperation, I erected an antenna I had been keeping as an emergency backup. Suddenly the bands seemed alive; could this be “the one”?

We live on a Goldilocks planet

The Earth might be what astronomers call a “Goldilocks” planet – a planet with a breathable atmosphere, that is just the right distance from a star to maintain temperatures compatible with human life. Such planets are rare in the universe. Of course, there are areas on our planet that don’t meet the Goldilocks criteria and I’m sure Canada must be one of those areas. On a snowy, freezing cold day in February ain’t nothin’ gonna convince me I live on a Goldilocks planet.

But Goldilocks has a flaw – it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. I am sure you are wondering why this narrative has drifted off the topic of ham radio and into astronomy. Explanation coming. Maybe there would be all kinds of downsides to a planet that did have good electrical conductivity, but building antennas would not be one of them.

As a consequence we have to go to a lot of trouble to compensate for the Earth’s poor conductivity. One of my CW buddies has a full-size quarter-wave top-band vertical. It’s a monster of a vertical antenna and requires hundreds of ground radials to work. I am more of a field portable operator who likes to work with simple wire antennas. Something that can be deployed rapidly out in the field and taken down again just as quickly. I have used plenty of antennas that have ground radials and sometimes even had pleasing success with them. But, throwing just a few wires on the ground is inefficient, and when you are a QRP operator you don’t have watts to spare.

So, to sum up, sorry Goldilocks, but you can’t be part of my antenna; I need wire in the air, not on the ground. Before you reach for the comments section to remind me that the ground is always part of an antenna, yes you are correct. In fact even the ground thousands of kilometers away affects our antennas. Our signals, of course, bounce their way around the planet between the Earth and its ionosphere. And even a good antenna, on a day when the propagation gods are displeased, may be disappointing.

“The One”

Simplest feedpoint arrangement

How about a simple wire antenna that is one half wavelength long, fed in the center. You could call it a Center-Fed Half Wave (CFHW) but a simpler way to describe it is with the word “dipole”. I have never been a fan of dipoles in the past. First, they occupy a lot of space. A flat top dipole requires three supports which takes longer to erect. Feeding dipoles in the center implies a long length of coax which may lead to losses.

During a field deployment there are a couple of ways to mitigate these issues. If a dipole is erected as an Inverted V the horizontal space is reduced and only a single support is required. The radiation pattern changes from bi-directional to omni-directional, but maybe that’s sometimes a good thing. The ends of the dipole can be attached to the top of trekking poles, or simply pegged into the ground via a length of cord.

The long coax issue can be overcome using a sleeve dipole. A sleeve dipole comprises one quarter wavelength of coax and one quarter wavelength of wire. It is physically fed at one end, but the electrical feedpoint is in the center where the coax inner conductor is joined to the wire. The coax acts as part of the feedline while the outer surface of the coax braid forms a quarter wave element due to the skin effect.

There is a variant of the sleeve dipole called the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole (OCFSD) which has been discussed here on Ham Radio Outside the Box in the past. The one I built supports multiple bands, but requires a 4:1 unun at the electrical feedpoint and a tuner in the shack. But, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Another idea is to feed the dipole in the center using Open Wire Line (“OWL”). Now it becomes what is known as a “doublet”. OWL has very low loss, even over long runs. A doublet can support multiple bands with the aid of a tuner. But, again, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Doesn’t a simple coax fed dipole require a balun at the feedpoint?

Technically, yes it does. If the dipole is perfectly symmetrical it is a balanced antenna. Feeding it with coax creates an interface between a balanced antenna and an unbalanced coax feedline. There is a possibility of common mode currents flowing back down the outer surface of the coax braid causing problems at the radio end.

Here we can get away with cheating a little. QRP operators have the advantage that any common mode current caused by lack of balance in the antenna, or by pickup of signal in the feedline will be very small and probably dissipate before reaching the radio. This little hack will probably not work at higher power.

But don’t you have to erect a dipole a half wavelength above ground?

No. Nein, nicht, non. For low angle radiation aimed at DX then, yes, erecting the feedpoint up high is definitely an advantage. But those of us activating or hunting any of the now numerous xOTA programs don’t have to follow that rule. I have had success with a 20m dipole with the apex at only 16ft. The angle of radiation is very high, but there is enough signal at lower angles to make intra-continental contacts. Similarly, my 40m dipole is targeted toward contacts in the eastern half of North America.

So simple dipoles it is then, or …

My antenna attention span can best be defined using quantum physics, i.e the science of things that are infinitesimally small. But for now I will be using simple wire dipoles for my field operations. Am I being too strict in my definition of “the one” antenna? Many a good contact has been made with miserably compromised whips, wands and wires. Perhaps my next venture will be a revisit with the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole to explore how it compares with a pure, unadulterated dipole. Stay tuned.

Trust me I am a X-spurt

No really, but with the explanation that “X” is an unknown quantity and, according to the American Dictionary of the English Language, “spurt” is “a sudden forcible gush or jet” or, put another way: a short burst of energy. I have also heard “spurt” defined as “a drip under pressure”. So you can place whatever value you wish on my “X-spurtise”; it is based on endless tinkering and experimentation. I often venture down blind alleys and produce results that are worth the product of one-squared and infinity to the power of minus one. Occasionally I may also accidentally stumble on a good idea; I’ll let you be the judge.

Gallery

Note the simple feedpoint arrangement and the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method by which the dipole is secured to the tip of the Spiderbeam pole. Ham-brew guy ring and paracord guys with stopper knots at the top and arrow knots at the bottom Ham-brew Spiderbeam base support allows it to stand upright while guy lines are deployed. Also prevents bottom of Spiderbeam from slipping under tension Simple peg in the ground secures the guy lines. Replace with a flat piece of board buried “dead man” style in sand or snow. You may be carrying trekking poles anyway so why not use them to support the dipole ends. Note the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Ground #OutdoorOps #Portable

No loading coils, no top-hats, no transformers, no ununs, no baluns, no tuners, no radials – just the perfect antenna?

Just imagine, if you could get rid of all those lossy loading coils, impedance transformers, ununs, baluns, tuners and ground radial trip wires. What do you have left? Could it be the most perfect, the ultimate, 100% efficient, dream antenna? Yes, yes; it’s a dream! But back in the real world …

I spent most of the day recently, sweltering under a hot sun (suck it up John, the snow will be back before you know it) deploying all my recent experimental antennas, comparing results. It’s a lot of fun to experiment with various combinations of wire, whips, cores and coils, seeking “the one”, the best one, the antenna that will outperform expectations and fill the log book with DX galore.

Conditions that day were far less than perfect. Some stations I called faded away before the QSO was complete. Others couldn’t hear my 5000 mW signal at all. QSOs came along every few minutes of calling but most involved a struggle to squeeze enough microamps through my antenna to exchange signal reports and QTH. Every one of the antennas I tried bore the same result – until, out of desperation, I erected an antenna I had been keeping as an emergency backup. Suddenly the bands seemed alive; could this be “the one”?

We live on a Goldilocks planet

The Earth might be what astronomers call a “Goldilocks” planet – a planet with a breathable atmosphere, that is just the right distance from a star to maintain temperatures compatible with human life. Such planets are rare in the universe. Of course, there are areas on our planet that don’t meet the Goldilocks criteria and I’m sure Canada must be one of those areas. On a snowy, freezing cold day in February ain’t nothin’ gonna convince me I live on a Goldilocks planet.

But Goldilocks has a flaw – it doesn’t conduct electricity very well. I am sure you are wondering why this narrative has drifted off the topic of ham radio and into astronomy. Explanation coming. Maybe there would be all kinds of downsides to a planet that did have good electrical conductivity, but building antennas would not be one of them.

As a consequence we have to go to a lot of trouble to compensate for the Earth’s poor conductivity. One of my CW buddies has a full-size quarter-wave top-band vertical. It’s a monster of a vertical antenna and requires hundreds of ground radials to work. I am more of a field portable operator who likes to work with simple wire antennas. Something that can be deployed rapidly out in the field and taken down again just as quickly. I have used plenty of antennas that have ground radials and sometimes even had pleasing success with them. But, throwing just a few wires on the ground is inefficient, and when you are a QRP operator you don’t have watts to spare.

So, to sum up, sorry Goldilocks, but you can’t be part of my antenna; I need wire in the air, not on the ground. Before you reach for the comments section to remind me that the ground is always part of an antenna, yes you are correct. In fact even the ground thousands of kilometers away affects our antennas. Our signals, of course, bounce their way around the planet between the Earth and its ionosphere. And even a good antenna, on a day when the propagation gods are displeased, may be disappointing.

“The One”

Simplest feedpoint arrangement

How about a simple wire antenna that is one half wavelength long, fed in the center. You could call it a Center-Fed Half Wave (CFHW) but a simpler way to describe it is with the word “dipole”. I have never been a fan of dipoles in the past. First, they occupy a lot of space. A flat top dipole requires three supports which takes longer to erect. Feeding dipoles in the center implies a long length of coax which may lead to losses.

During a field deployment there are a couple of ways to mitigate these issues. If a dipole is erected as an Inverted V the horizontal space is reduced and only a single support is required. The radiation pattern changes from bi-directional to omni-directional, but maybe that’s sometimes a good thing. The ends of the dipole can be attached to the top of trekking poles, or simply pegged into the ground via a length of cord.

The long coax issue can be overcome using a sleeve dipole. A sleeve dipole comprises one quarter wavelength of coax and one quarter wavelength of wire. It is physically fed at one end, but the electrical feedpoint is in the center where the coax inner conductor is joined to the wire. The coax acts as part of the feedline while the outer surface of the coax braid forms a quarter wave element due to the skin effect.

There is a variant of the sleeve dipole called the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole (OCFSD) which has been discussed here on Ham Radio Outside the Box in the past. The one I built supports multiple bands, but requires a 4:1 unun at the electrical feedpoint and a tuner in the shack. But, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Another idea is to feed the dipole in the center using Open Wire Line (“OWL”). Now it becomes what is known as a “doublet”. OWL has very low loss, even over long runs. A doublet can support multiple bands with the aid of a tuner. But, again, this post is all about keeping a simple wire antenna sweet and simple – no ununs, baluns, tuners etc allowed.

Doesn’t a simple coax fed dipole require a balun at the feedpoint?

Technically, yes it does. If the dipole is perfectly symmetrical it is a balanced antenna. Feeding it with coax creates an interface between a balanced antenna and an unbalanced coax feedline. There is a possibility of common mode currents flowing back down the outer surface of the coax braid causing problems at the radio end.

Here we can get away with cheating a little. QRP operators have the advantage that any common mode current caused by lack of balance in the antenna, or by pickup of signal in the feedline will be very small and probably dissipate before reaching the radio. This little hack will probably not work at higher power.

But don’t you have to erect a dipole a half wavelength above ground?

No. Nein, nicht, non. For low angle radiation aimed at DX then, yes, erecting the feedpoint up high is definitely an advantage. But those of us activating or hunting any of the now numerous xOTA programs don’t have to follow that rule. I have had success with a 20m dipole with the apex at only 16ft. The angle of radiation is very high, but there is enough signal at lower angles to make intra-continental contacts. Similarly, my 40m dipole is targeted toward contacts in the eastern half of North America.

So simple dipoles it is then, or …

My antenna attention span can best be defined using quantum physics, i.e the science of things that are infinitesimally small. But for now I will be using simple wire dipoles for my field operations. Am I being too strict in my definition of “the one” antenna? Many a good contact has been made with miserably compromised whips, wands and wires. Perhaps my next venture will be a revisit with the Off-Center Fed Sleeve Dipole to explore how it compares with a pure, unadulterated dipole. Stay tuned.

Trust me I am a X-spurt

No really, but with the explanation that “X” is an unknown quantity and, according to the American Dictionary of the English Language, “spurt” is “a sudden forcible gush or jet” or, put another way: a short burst of energy. I have also heard “spurt” defined as “a drip under pressure”. So you can place whatever value you wish on my “X-spurtise”; it is based on endless tinkering and experimentation. I often venture down blind alleys and produce results that are worth the product of one-squared and infinity to the power of minus one. Occasionally I may also accidentally stumble on a good idea; I’ll let you be the judge.

Gallery

Note the simple feedpoint arrangement and the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method by which the dipole is secured to the tip of the Spiderbeam pole. Ham-brew guy ring and paracord guys with stopper knots at the top and arrow knots at the bottom Ham-brew Spiderbeam base support allows it to stand upright while guy lines are deployed. Also prevents bottom of Spiderbeam from slipping under tension Simple peg in the ground secures the guy lines. Replace with a flat piece of board buried “dead man” style in sand or snow. You may be carrying trekking poles anyway so why not use them to support the dipole ends. Note the “loop-thru-loop” quick release method.

Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox

No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!

The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

#Antennas #Ground #OutdoorOps #Portable