My Antennas

First on the list, my J-Pole. This is a very easy to build and robust antenna that is designed to work on the 144Mhz. and 440Mhz bands. It is made of 1/2 inch copper water pipe that can easily be obtained at any local hardware store. I requires approximately 10 feet of pipe, 1 of those 1/2 inch "T" fittings, 1/2 inch elbow 90 degrees, and the required solder and torch to heat the junctions so that you can hook them together. I do not remember the dimensions, but if you e-mail me, I can take the time to look them up.

I next, my 2 meter beam. This is a very universal unit that I use for bunny hunting or just if I need some gain. It is a 3 element beam with a boom and mast made of PVC pipe. The elements are made of brass welding rod. The resonant that I use brass is that it hold up better than copper and you can solder to it, unlike a aluminum tube. I use the same method for hooking the coax to the as I do on my 20meter dipole.

And my quad, this is a simple 2 element quad antenna made for bunny hunting. It is made for 2 meters and I use the same method as above for line to antenna hook up. BUT, this will not allow you to transmit on the antenna because the element acts as a direct short and you handheld will not like that much SWR. If you want to transmit on this antenna, you will have to put on a gamma match or a T match. The gamma is easily made with some wire. You may need a variable capacitor to tune it up the first time, but then you can remove the capacitor and wind on wire in place of the capacitor. It acts as a capacitor with the wire being wound so close. The antenna comes apart in 3 pieces. If you look at the last picture of the antenna, you can see that the two elements have that threaded "T" fitting so that the elements simply can be removed from the main mast.

And next on the list, my tower. It is probably older than I am. The previous owner of this tower, Tom (N7CPA) passed away months ago and his family did not want this rusty piece of junk in their backyard. So I went and picked it up and brought it home. Colin Lamb (K7FM) identified it as a old Supreme brand tower that was about 33-34 feet tall when cranked up. I gave it a sanding job and painted it. It is mounted to the garage at about the 10 ft height above the base. It is then supported at the top of the tower using 3/16 galvanized cable. Then a 20 foot pole extends out of the top for the inverted V. At the top, there is the center insulator, and the feed point. I put a third wire on the very top, so that the antenna elements would not only act as antenna elements, but also guys for the very flexible piece of aluminum tubing. So one of the top wires is unused, only for support. Also shown is some pictures of my Tribander Beam. The name of the antenna slips me currently but it operates on 10, 15, and 20 meters. I rotate the antenna with a rotator that was given to me by K7FM in parts. Apparently the previous owner was unable to reassemble the unit when he took it apart for whatever reason. So after a little cleaning, testing, and lubricating I reassembled the unit having special fun with the dual bearing race. A tip if you ever have to do that. Imbed the small, easily lost bearings in grease in their housing so that you can invert it without them falling out. It works great and the grease serves a positive purpose. So not bad unit for being a basket-case. It is a Wilson WR-200 I believe and runs on 120VAC rather than the 24V standard. I also had to build the rotator controller for it. The indicator circuit built by K7FM previously. I just had to rewire, remove a transformer, and do some adjustments. So now it works great for what I want it to do. Some small modifications to the meter allowed me to put a new scale of S,E,N,W,S so it works good. Of course there is no fusing circuity. That would be ridiculous. That is what a UPS is for :)

Finally, there is my multiband inverted V. The apex of the antenna is at 52 feet. And electric fence in-line insulators are used for the center insulator. The antenna is fed directly with RG-58 coax (no balun). The antenna has a set of 40 meter traps in it, and also some tails that hang down. This allows broader bandwidth and also different resonances. It resonates on 10, 15, 20, 40, and 80 meters. I simply made it out of 14 AWG house style wire. I use a set of bungee cords without the hooks for the end insulators. The total length of the antenna is equivalent of a 80 meter dipole. It continues to work great. For more information, contact me or get your hands on the 2000 Antenna book for construction details.

Of course I have more antennas however they are either mobile ones that I have yet to take pictures of or they are just scanner antennas or such things as that. So now we end the long, boring antenna details sections. Hope you enjoyed your flight, thank you for flying with us today.

Home/My Shack/My Antennas/My Antennas In Detail/My Equipment/My Equipment In Detail/VHF-UHF/HF/Packet Radio/RDF/ARES/MARC/NHS/Experiments/Nets/Other Hobbies/Me/Links/Contact Info

Last Updated: Thursday, April 17, 2003