My new antenna works well on 80, 40, 30, and 20 meters. I have not
tried the other bands. While it was cut for 7100 kHz the design is good
for other bands too, using the Elecraft tuner. I am thankful my design
does exactly what I wanted it to do within my design criteria. It is
quieter than my doublet and reaches parts of the US which the doublet
does not.
Is there an ultimate antenna? NO. I never intended it to be used as a
personal mobile antenna, nor as an antenna which works DC to daylight.
I wanted an antenna with different propagation characteristics than my
doublet for only 20 and 40 meters.
I live on a ridge exposed to high winds which occur regularly each
winter. I lose antennas almost every year. Designing them with 14 ga.
THHN wire helped a great deal. Cheap. Easy to find in most hardware
stores. Durable. And easily repaired when the flying limbs break
them. I can't imagine the replacement costs for a Yagi-Uda antenna. I
doubt they would last two years with the flying branches I experience.
Antenna design is part of the fun of amateur radio. The other part is
enjoying what you can afford, mount, and use. Your design criteria will
not be the same as mine. Thus your solution will be different.
73 and GL,
Kevin. KD5ONS
-
On 8/1/20 12:12 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
For what it may be worth, I'm a staunch supporter of antenna tuners
myself. I previously used one for many years to get 5 band operation
out of two vertical pieces of tubing on my roof back when I lived in
Scottsdale, and I just built a high power monster to get full coverage
of the low bands with my current antennas here in the boonies. I'm
definitely not one of those who think that antennas need to be
resonant to be any good.
Antenna tuners can indeed be lossy, but with the right components they
don't have to be, and if they are lossy enough to significantly affect
your signal most of them will burn up first. TLW, the free app that
comes with the ARRL Antenna Book, is quite informative on that score.
My gripe with the original post from G3UNA was simply his
generalization that resonant antennas are bad and that non-resonant
antennas are good.
73,
Dave AB7E
On 8/1/2020 11:21 AM, Al Lorona wrote:
I'm glad Dave added that to the end of his message, because each time
the topic of multiband antennas comes up, we are told, "That's too
lofty a goal for one antenna. Just put up a resonant antenna and all
your troubles will be gone." All except for the problem of operating
on all bands without having to put up 9 resonant HF antennas, that
is. I think we do a disservice to the hundreds of hams reading this
by discouraging them from multiband operation just because we deem it
too "noisy" or "lossy" or "inconvenient" or whatever.
If a man or woman, knowing full well the consequences of his or her
actions, chooses to utilize a single, horizontal antenna of no
particular length, ultra-low-loss feedline long enough to reach the
shack, and a low-loss homebrew or commercial manual antenna tuner to
operate on all bands, then who are we to tell him or her that they
shouldn't? To do so has always struck me as presumptuous.
Incidentally, can we do two things? Can we all get over the gross
assumption that we continue to make, that when someone mentions
feeding an antenna with "balanced line" that must mean Wireman #553?
There are better alternatives. If our beef is with Wireman #553, then
let's be on with it without condemning *all* forms of balanced line.
Secondly, antenna tuners are not necessarily lossier than the
aggregate of cables, connectors, wattmeters, filters, switches,
elbows, lightning arrestors, baluns, autotuners, &c., &c., that many
folks use. Everything has loss, but in effect we trade that loss for
some other valuable function... like being able to QSY anwhere,
easily. To give you a data point, on 12 meters my station has a max
loss (from transmitter to the antenna feedpoint) of 1.6 dB. I'll put
that worst-case number up against anybody's long run of coax through
all the other junk from their transmitter to their antenna.
Folks, you should not feel inferior for having chosen to operate on
many bands with an antenna tuner. I think the case could be made that
the *resonant* antenna is the compromise, giving up all band
operation for some other desired function. And sadly, sometimes that
compromise is made just so they can say that they're not using a tuner!
Al W6LX
Multi-band antennas are fine as long as you recognize that they are a
compromise.
Dave AB7E
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to ab7e...@gmail.com
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to kev...@coho.net
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
