Antenna Page

Antenna Page

I must admit.. one of my early fascinations about ham radio was with antennas. I remember making a 6 meter loop and running my IC-706 in my Brookfield, Illinois home on a 60 foot wide lot. Can you say "Hello neighbor"? Try six meters on a homemade loop antenna on the porch at about gutter height. I worked some NJ some Texas and Florida as I recall. I also learned my first lesson about RFI. My solution was to move to a 5 acre lot in the next state. Sort of.... Here you'll see the antennas, permanent and temporary that I've used both at home and on trips.

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Fixed Antennas @ AE9B

160M 1/4 Wave Vertical
This is my current pride. A 160M 1/4 wave vertical made from Rohn 25 is the dream of many hams and I've been very fortunate to be able to install one. With the help of Lee K0LW, Hal and Bob KC0DLM the tower was installed one section at a time with a gin pole a few pulleys and help from a tractor. The stinger is a 20 foot chain link top rail. It was originally tuned for 1.83 Mhz and has since developed some SWR. I installed 60 radials of various gauge wire with Hal's homemade plow attached to my tractor. It was awesome and took only a few hours. It actually took my longer to attach the radials to the ring at the base. It has been up for a few years now on only a 1' foot thick 3'x3' pad. Since it is guyed, we insulated the guy wires with the fiberglass rods that are used on power and telephone pole guy wires. The wires are also divided into non resonant lengths. The base section is insulated about 9 feet high by some fiberglass inserts. Originally I thought elevated radials would work but after hours of trying, they didn't seem to operate well so I conceded to reality and plowed away. The ground radials will serve without being in the way and I'm not sure there's any proof that elevated radials perform as well as some suggest anyway.

40M 4 Square

The 40M 4-Square is an excellent 40M DX antenna. I believe the low angle takeoff is perfect from my location in the middle of the U.S. I have a 2 el beam but this outplays it for DX 10 fold. I used to have this as a temporary seasonal antenna with guy wire everywhere but have made it a permanent installation by burying 4x4 posts in the ground and bolting and strapping the pole to the 4 x 4. I use a Rohn 50' push up pole for the elements. They're telescopic and can be tilted over to work on them if necessary. I use only the bottom sections of the Rohn to gain strength and eliminate the section(s) not necessary for total length of 1/4 Wave. A Comtek control box and switch setup handle the 4 direction (NE) (NW) (SE) (SW) switching. Each element has 8 or so radials under it.

Top loaded 80M/160M Vertical

I have tried these top loaded verticals extensively. First designed and the Colatchco antenna, KD0FW made several of the coils and baluns for me to use during the 2001/2002 contest seasons. It uses a Rohn 50' push up pole and a loading coil at the top. With 2 sets of top loading wires (which double as guy wires) one set at the top for 160M and one set down about 15' (for 80M) it tunes pretty easily by lengthening the loading wires. I actually phase a pair for 160M and another pair for 80M one year. The 80M pair never seemed to work that great but the phased pair on 160M worked pretty well. My overall opinion is that this is a good compromise antenna similar to many of the DXPedition type loaded verticals. I wouldn't trade it for my 1/4 wave vertical but it works pretty well and can be set up in an hour or so if you know what you're doing.

80M Phased Pair

As I mention above I have tried these top loaded verticals extensively. I began to learn about phasing and the requirements necessary to make antenna gain due to multiple antennas. We tried to get these two antennas to fire both endfire and broadside (switched) but were unsuccessful. I'm still not sure what we did wrong but these were temporary antennas during the 2002 contest season and will probably only be used on DXpeds from here on. The antennas sits in a 4 in PVC cap which serves as an insulator. Several radials were tied to a radial ring and laid on the ground, and a ground rod driven next to the mast tied the system together in a typical vertical situation.

GP-9

The Comet GP-9 antenna is an excellent omni directional 2M - 440 antenna. I live several miles from our nearest repeater but have no difficulty reaching 20 plus miles with this antenna up about 70 feet on a tower and medium power of about 25 watts. It is fed with about 150' of RG-8 and PL259 connectors through a lighting suppressor.

	Fixed Antennas @ AE9B
160M 1/4 Wave Vertical	This is my current pride. A 160M 1/4 wave vertical made from Rohn 25 is the dream of many hams and I've been very fortunate to be able to install one. With the help of Lee K0LW, Hal and Bob KC0DLM the tower was installed one section at a time with a gin pole a few pulleys and help from a tractor. The stinger is a 20 foot chain link top rail. It was originally tuned for 1.83 Mhz and has since developed some SWR. I installed 60 radials of various gauge wire with Hal's homemade plow attached to my tractor. It was awesome and took only a few hours. It actually took my longer to attach the radials to the ring at the base. It has been up for a few years now on only a 1' foot thick 3'x3' pad. Since it is guyed, we insulated the guy wires with the fiberglass rods that are used on power and telephone pole guy wires. The wires are also divided into non resonant lengths. The base section is insulated about 9 feet high by some fiberglass inserts. Originally I thought elevated radials would work but after hours of trying, they didn't seem to operate well so I conceded to reality and plowed away. The ground radials will serve without being in the way and I'm not sure there's any proof that elevated radials perform as well as some suggest anyway.
40M 4 Square	The 40M 4-Square is an excellent 40M DX antenna. I believe the low angle takeoff is perfect from my location in the middle of the U.S. I have a 2 el beam but this outplays it for DX 10 fold. I used to have this as a temporary seasonal antenna with guy wire everywhere but have made it a permanent installation by burying 4x4 posts in the ground and bolting and strapping the pole to the 4 x 4. I use a Rohn 50' push up pole for the elements. They're telescopic and can be tilted over to work on them if necessary. I use only the bottom sections of the Rohn to gain strength and eliminate the section(s) not necessary for total length of 1/4 Wave. A Comtek control box and switch setup handle the 4 direction (NE) (NW) (SE) (SW) switching. Each element has 8 or so radials under it.
Top loaded 80M/160M Vertical	I have tried these top loaded verticals extensively. First designed and the Colatchco antenna, KD0FW made several of the coils and baluns for me to use during the 2001/2002 contest seasons. It uses a Rohn 50' push up pole and a loading coil at the top. With 2 sets of top loading wires (which double as guy wires) one set at the top for 160M and one set down about 15' (for 80M) it tunes pretty easily by lengthening the loading wires. I actually phase a pair for 160M and another pair for 80M one year. The 80M pair never seemed to work that great but the phased pair on 160M worked pretty well. My overall opinion is that this is a good compromise antenna similar to many of the DXPedition type loaded verticals. I wouldn't trade it for my 1/4 wave vertical but it works pretty well and can be set up in an hour or so if you know what you're doing.
80M Phased Pair	As I mention above I have tried these top loaded verticals extensively. I began to learn about phasing and the requirements necessary to make antenna gain due to multiple antennas. We tried to get these two antennas to fire both endfire and broadside (switched) but were unsuccessful. I'm still not sure what we did wrong but these were temporary antennas during the 2002 contest season and will probably only be used on DXpeds from here on. The antennas sits in a 4 in PVC cap which serves as an insulator. Several radials were tied to a radial ring and laid on the ground, and a ground rod driven next to the mast tied the system together in a typical vertical situation.
GP-9	The Comet GP-9 antenna is an excellent omni directional 2M - 440 antenna. I live several miles from our nearest repeater but have no difficulty reaching 20 plus miles with this antenna up about 70 feet on a tower and medium power of about 25 watts. It is fed with about 150' of RG-8 and PL259 connectors through a lighting suppressor.