Absolutely beautiful, and hilarious Sir! As a relative newbie, I’ve also been reading, studying, and actually attempting to build, and test, a couple of different antenna designs…
While I truly am enjoying the process, and the experience, admittedly, you’re diatribe tickled my funny bone. I also share much of your perspective on this topic. Ironically, as an “OG” computer engineer, I’ve spent most of my career & life, trying to prevent signals from coupling, or radiating from either silicon devices, or from the PCB’s that they are mounted on Necessary for the obvious reasons. Hence, getting into the “hobby”, I had hoped that building antenna devices to intentionally radiate, would be less obscure, than aspects of my job… I like a rather interesting challenge, so why not try it, right? 1-My 1st attempt was a 70cm, 7 element quad. Ironically, after completion, and minor tweaks, it actually tested out as expected. I was using a VNA to examine its characteristics. Remarkably, in receive mode, it does seem to work quite well, even well directionally. However, regardless of my testing, I do not have the nerve to actually key the mic, without fear of smoking my final amps at 420-450MHz. (Lol) 2-The 2nd effort has been an attempt at building a 10m coax double Bazooka. This antenna has been a bit more interesting, at least with respect to “tuning and pruning” portion of the process. It looked like fun project, so I’ve made several attempts to get it properly aligned at 28.85MHz. It’s close now, and amazingly, I’ve managed to get the SWR down to 1.016:1, at 28.750MHz. It even has a reasonable impedance, measuring ~55 ohms w/1.06nF of capacitance.) (But, I will not key the mic with it either, for fear of destroying my rig finals.) Using it, I have now had the pleasure to listen to DX’s from many far-away places with the results the project. The most recent being a DX from Maryland to Chile, and I could actually hear both ends of the discussion. No doubt, these good folks are cranking serious power, and punching it out on beam mounted towers, to propagate those distances. This is too much fun to listen to these far away conversations. However, again, I don’t trust the results of “my” antenna work, lest I I destroy my finals. But, it seems like it actually is pretty good for listening! (I think that I’ll purchase a “real antenna”!) Bill Walker > On Feb 16, 2023, at 12:41 PM, Ameenah007 via BVARC <bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: > > > Brilliant Sir. Simply Brilliant. Best explanation I've ever read. > > Ameenah > AC5Rx > >> On Thu, Feb 16, 2023 at 12:26 PM M Reiter via BVARC <bvarc@bvarc.org> wrote: >> Yes I can now say with certainty that all antenna science is actually just >> VooDoo. >> after reading 100s of pages on an equal number of antenna configurations I >> have determined that the only common denominator is that antennas must be >> made from metal. and someone will let me know that is also not so. to sum >> up my research you must have a 1/4, 1/2, 5/8, 3/8, 3/4 full wavelength >> section at some angle to something else that is larger or smaller than the >> original it must be between touching the earth or 200ft high whichever you >> like more. it should be horizontal or vertical or an angle in-between. can >> be made from wire or tubing of copper or aluminum but do not rule out >> magnesium. it must be an open or closed circuit it definitely should or >> should not be resonate, SWR is bad, but a little is ok. dont forget to >> trim your antenna until you have trimmed too much then add some back and >> trim some more. A balun unun unbalunousbulbulous, is absolutely maybe >> required but dont use one, they are rings of mystery metal called ferite, >> because they may be ferous and may be magic, they should be wound clockwise >> or counter clockwise or both and may have 2 but can have as many as six >> wires in a mystical configuration that can not be shown in 2 dimensions. did >> i mention the magic ladder wire or 75-400 or more ohm coax with or without >> loops to make something called ohms all nice and matchy matchy. (oof course >> you dont need this either because radios do this for you.) >> >> so there you have it, all you need to know to get out there and make a >> perfect antenna. >> >> Marc >> Zombie Ham Operator, ki5ZHO >> ________________________________________________ >> Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club >> >> BVARC mailing list >> BVARC@bvarc.org >> http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org >> Publicly available archives are available here: >> https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/ > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > BVARC@bvarc.org > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/bvarc@bvarc.org/
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