Rich, You will need the Elecraft balun kit for the feeder at the rig before it connects to K2 by a short coax jumper.
You can use any plastic that has no conductive material in it as insulators. The one you mention is fine, (plexiglas). You can also use PVC plumbing fittings from Home Depot, or buy the grey conduit pvc and cut insulators out of that. In the beige PVC plumbing fittings are Tees for center insulator, and nipples for end insulators. Or just buy the grey conduit as it is more resistant to sunlight, and cut to needed lengths. You can dogleg the ends of your dipole, (doublet since it is non resonant, 131 ft.). That would be symmetric and better than folding only one end. You need to keep the center and feeder part in straight line for 60 per cent of total length for most efficiency. Do not shorten the doublet, in fact usually an all band doublet is made of 135 feet of wire, center fed by ladder line, and of course you need a tuner at the end of the line, after your balun. I think I covered all your points. Use as much wire as you can, up to 135 feet, as straight as you can get mid part of it. Plastic is fine for insulators. Darker plastic resists the sun more. You will need a tuner for all bands coverage. You can fold, droop, bend the ends of a doublet to make it fit. You could put up a PVC "flag pole" and run the ladder line inside it, and hang the doublet as an inverted Vee from the top. Use smaller wire, like no. 16 for low visibility and use dark wire, flat black if possible. It will tend to blend into sky background. GL and 72, Stuart K5KVH It might be better to let them hang down rather than be up close to roof edge. Some roofing has a foil backing or metal at edges. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
