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Homebrew projects for radio & electronics enthusiasts
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RAISING WIRE ANTENNAS

Wire antennas deliver the most bang for the buck, but they require a little work to put up. The most common way to put one up is to use the biological towers in your yard: the trees! To make this work, you need to install ropes to hold up the antennas. Here's a description of my favorite technique for getting those ropes up there:

SETTING ROPES IN TREES FOR WIRE ANTENNAS



ANTENNA PROJECT SELECTOR

VHF ANTENNAS
2 meter HT Handipole

Add some gain over your 'rubber dummy load' with this full size dipole on your HT.
2 meter rollup J-pole Compact portable companion for travel or temporary operation. Hang it up anywhere.
2 meter 4 element, portable yagi This yagi breaks right down and the elements store right inside the boom. The boom and mast can be used for walking sticks. Can be used as a base, as a portable or for foxhunting.
2 meter, 4 element quad Rugged, yet lightweight powerhouse is great for base or portable and is especially excellent for foxhunting. It can also be constructed to break down for compact storage.
2 meter Bicycle whip antenna This 1/2 wave, end-fed vertical with compact feed is built right onto a 1/4" fiberglass bicycle flag whip and requires no ground plane nor radials!. Excellent for bikes, boats, RV's, etc., or anywhere a compact vertical is desired.

MONOBAND HF ANTENNAS
10 meter wire J-pole This end-fed half wave radiator is simple to make and even simpler to put up with a single rope. Can also be strung horizontally from your shack's window with a single rope to another support.
10 meter wire collinear 'super' J-pole Yeah! More gain! Two 5/8 wave, phased radiators. Can be strung vertically for omnidirectional gain. This is a great omnidirectional gain antenna!
20 meter wire J-pole This end-fed half wave radiator is simple to make and even simpler to put up with a single rope. Can also be strung horizontally from your shack's window with a single rope to another support.

MULTIBAND HF ANTENNAS
80-10 meter doublet with open wire feed Arguably the most popular 80-10 multiband antenna ever! Certainly, the most bang for the buck!. If you only build one, this should be it. Ultra simple to build and no pruning required. Good lobes of serious gain on the higher bands and low loss. Requires an outboard tuner with open wire terminals for best performance or you can use your rig's built-in tuner and a remote balun to match most bands. This antenna has the most gain when strung as a horizontal, flat-top, but it is versatile and can be strung as a sloper, or inverted vee.
80-10 meter mobile vertical My latest project, and the results of 9 months of experimenting after putting an HF rig in my car. The signal reports have been excellent! This is, essentially, a homebrew version of a Texas Bugcatcher, except that the capacity hat is up at the top of the whip where it belongs for maximum efficiency. And, it's a lot cheaper!

Good luck and have fun with your antenna project!

--...MARK_N1LO...--



These antenna plan files are in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (*.PDF files), the emerging standard for downloadable documents of all types on the web. To read or print the item, just click on it to download the file, then open it using the free Adobe Acrobat reader program, which you must have installed on your computer. Typically, Acrobat will open automatically and display your goodie. Follow the link below to get Acrobat if you don't already have it.


Here's where you can  get Acrobat reader









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