innismir.net

This originally was going to be part of my last post, but it was long enough to be broken off into it’s own article. I know that KA3DRR has asked me a couple of times what my antenna setup was like. My antenna setup is very meager, when I first made my antenna I had a good idea what I needed:

I had a few requirements:

1. It had to be cheap
2. It had to be easy to set up and break down
3. It had to be simple
4. It had to not require a tuner

Since then, times have changed a bit: I have a tuner now, and I wanted to operate more bands. However, the cheap, simple, and easy to set up and break down requirements stayed the same. My mounting situation has more or less stayed the same. I use a tree that is outside my office to hang my antenna up and then when I’m done I take it off. It’s not the best situation and the “half wavelength above the ground” rule is definitely flaunted:

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You can see my radio room from the outside in shot. Also visible is my 2M on-the-ground-plane. This is permanently left outside and is connected to my IC-27H.

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With the original 20M elements and the 10M elements I added a few months ago, I think it looks like a giant spider when it’s hung in the tree. Thankfully it breaks down in about 5 minutes of work and is a rolls up into a nice manageable size. I use Velcro cable ties on the end to keep the elements wrapped up and neat.

Guess what? Click For Larger

I love my antenna, as it’s the first “homebrew” project I ever did. It also works quite well, I’ve worked as far as the Ukraine on it with 100W. Sure, it’s a pain to shuffle out at night and take it down and I can’t wait until I get a house in which I can simply have an antenna that I can leave up all the time, but in my current situation, it gets the job done.