Expand a 40M rotatable dipole into a 2-element yagi with a fixed wire element. Add a relay to the wire and get instant 180-degree rotation, too.
Depending on your location, changing your rotator control meter’s scale to a north-centered scale could greatly reduce the turning required to work the most popular areas. Here’s a step-by-step guide to making the change on a CDE rotator control — including a printable high-resolution image of the North-centered meter scale.
This may be the cheapest, lowest, no-radials-required, no fancy networks, way to get great gain on 40M. If you have some rope, trees, junkbox wire, a couple of DPDT relays, and some coax laying around, you have all it takes to build this antenna.
Sometimes when my antenna is at 25′, I do quite well into Canada and the U.S — perhaps even better than with the antenna at 45′. Terrain analysis helped end the mystery of height vs. performance at this ridge-top QTH.
If you have room to run a short 270′-long Beverage antenna, you’ll improve your reception on the low bands (160M and 80M). Here’s how I built the antenna and just-too-easy transformer.
Choosing the SteppIR 3-element was not a difficult decision. Those who have used this antenna swear by it. Read my notes as I purchased, installed and put one on the air at VA7ST.
The “crappie pole” is a short, linearly loaded 40M rotatable dipole you can build for $50 or less. And it works!
This is a home-made five-band antenna made from bits of bamboo, some hose clamps, a few wires, and lots of hours of puzzling, building and — at last — huge satisfaction.
| Powered by WordPress | Theme by TheBootstrapThemes