Welcome to my page describing my vertical antenna project.
First a big thank you to dj0ip at https://www.dj0ip.de for the idea and initial drawings!
This a start in writing this article from me – and more details and pictures will be added soon – stay tuned
I have worked with electronics for some years for income at some big RF companies, but antennas have so far slipped my interest.
Also – would like to say that all my writing is only by test and trying – not so mush based on mathematics and simulations.
Also – English is not my native language – so a lott could probably be better written – but hopefully you do understand 🙂
I was living in Norway and having the callsign LB8FH and there my main antenna was a 80m h loop at about 25m height.
After my wife passed away (who was Austrian) – I decided to move to Austria – and my work to find a place to stay here – I had some main points I would like to have solved
A relative good size garden, and hopefully some big trees – and a house outside of crowded centers – and then also hopefully low amount of man made noice.
Well – my first antenna here was a 160m horizontal loop at about 20m height – hanging in the trees.
Then only to find that these trees was to old – and was of security reasons needed to be taken down.
I still have some big oak trees, but the really height ones are not there any longer.
So what to do with the antennas for the low frequencies …
Now done quite a few antenna experiments and finds antennas to be far more important than any of my radios – to be able to manage DX around the world.
And the reason is quite simple – TX performance “can” be compensated by putting more power into cable in most cases, but not so for the receiving part.
You will not be able to have a 2 way conversation if you do not hear them !!!!
I have tried to mount low noice RX amplifiers at the antenna base, but they also amplifies the noice – and if there is no signals – there is nothing to amplify !
So – only way to go is to have an antenna system that picks up the faint signals – so your receiver can decode them – and work on them – and you hear them.
There is no secret in that I’m doing most of my QSO’s in digital modes. So far since the 2 years I have been living in Austria – I have more than 46.000 QSO’s logged. https://www.qrz.com/db/OE4KSF
My SpiderBeam is doing a good job on 20m and higher, but have struggled to find a good antenna for 30m to 160m – and I do like 160m and also started on 630 meter.
I tested a lot of different wire antennas – more or less horizontal – lopps, long wires , Inverted V – end feed etc etc etc. All of the them was sky warmers – and did poor in DX due to mounting height.
After countless Googling – I found that I needed to test out the vertical solutions.
First I got a 18m Spiderpole – made a 80m and 40m antenna with a decent ground wire system.
This was working far better than I expected , but it did not solve my 160m problem 🙂
I therefor got me a 26 meter Spiderpole – after reading the pages from DJ0IP – and made his suggestion for a 160m vertical.
Made wonders for 160m – I had more 160m DX that I could even dream on before. Japan was like in my own
garden 🙂
garden 🙂
Did a lott of testing on different windings on the antenna pole etc .
Yes a 26m heigh pole is not invisible, and need some space to all the guying, but for me that is not a problem.
And I also decided to mount it as far away from the house as possible to hopefully pick up as little noice from the house as possible. 75meters of coax.
Invested in som really good 15mm coax and connectors. (Costing more than the antenna 😉 )
I later made a switch box at the base of the antenna and could change from the 15mm coax and an ordinary RG213 – and wow – to say it easy – no more RG213 for me!
Before I start to describe the antenna in details – I would like to say – do your best to make the antenna resonant – Yes a “antenna tuner” (Which is not a antenna tuner all all) ,
It’s only a impedans matcher for your radio – what You loose in a bad matched antenna system – can “never” be “fixed” by a “tuner” – only make your radio happy.
And also – a long coax as mine can “hide” some impedance dis-match – So I do all my measurements on the base on the antenna – not at the end of the long coax.
Also to mention – that I do have some “problems” when its raining – making changes in the RF reflection in the ground etc etc, but I can live with that.
The antenna is ground mounted , and radials are laying on the ground – in the gras.
To day I have 14 ground wires 15m long , 4x10m and 8×20 meter long. Plan to add 8×30-40m long ground wires later on – just ordered more cable.
Well – after finding that the 160m was working so great – I would like to add some more vertical wires for the other bands I would like to cower.
Using the top guying ropes as mounting points for the other radiating wires – about 2 meter from the pole – and using some isolators and “more ropes” to hold the radiating wires away from the pole at the center of the radiating wires – and countless – down / app of the ropes – and tuning and fine tuning of the radiators – I was able to have all bands 30m to 160m within 1:1 to 1.6 in swr.
Strange – but the 30m was and still is the difficult one to get “ right” – and is the one changing most when raining.
So – my antenna is now a combination of the two drawings you see under – with 4 extra vertical radiators – like the one in the drawing for the DUAL band 80m / 40m
But as the height is long enough – I could use the full height in vertical – except for the 80m that needs a bit of extension to the side as in the drawing for the 40m
So – now I have good working vertical for DX – 30m to 160m – and a happy DX’er
If you have the room for it – go for it – you will not be disappointed 🙂
My next project will be for the 630m band 🙂
NB again this drawings are not mine , but borrowed from DJ0IP.de website
The choke is here a FT240-43 , but a FT-240-31 would probably do a better job. But the -43 will do the job if no -31 available.
