A little weekend fun…
A tower with stacked beams and a foursquare fell in love and decided to get married.
The wedding sucked.
But the reception was INCREDIBLE.
Exploring Amateur Radio
Category Archives: Antennas
Weekend fun…
Would your government give you a permit for this tower?
I really love the hams from OH. They think big, think tall, and look for the most out of their antennas. Since they get hit too often with all that aurora stuff, they try and compensate with bigger, stronger, and better antennas.
If you are in a low point of the solar cycle, build bigger and [...]
The effect of ice on antennas
Engineering can only take us so far. Mother Nature knows all about engineering and creates havoc with the best sites and the most careful owners.
Take out the power and one is left with generators and a mess.
K1TTT’s great site is an example of excellent engineering meeting the power of Mother Nature. David’s documented it on [...]
Antennas for 100-pound DXpeditions
One of my favorite ham radio web sites was 100 pound DXpedition, a look at what it takes to organize and execute a light weight DXpedition. Unfortunately, Scott, NE1RD, decided he had written all he needed to write about the subject for his blog back in November, 2007.
But he hasn’t stopped writing.
Scott’s latest foray [...]
Still liking ZeroFive Antenna
Got a note late yesterday asking whether or not I was still liking my ZeroFive Vertical that I put up earlier in the summer.
The short answer is “yes.”
Great construction, good instructions, and good performance. The antenna has been used in Field Day (with a comparison to another local Field Day site), the IARU Contest, and [...]
Blowing up a tower or four
The Naval Academy has a transmitting site for Very Low Frequency communications with submarines.
Or, had.
The 31-second video has the take down. There is a guy who says “happy new year” on the video, but it was just added to You Tube two days ago. You can also see more about the site from a ham [...]
ZeroFive Antenna — Performance
After prepping the parts, installing the antenna, and installing the radials, we finally get to performance of the 40-10 meter vertical from ZeroFive Antennas.
The antenna is designed to work with a tuner. In my case, I use the built-in tuner on the Yaesu FT-1000MP.
SWR is more than acceptable with the tuner.
Radials make [...]
ZeroFive Antenna — Radial Installation
After getting the parts organized for the 40-10 ZeroFive antenna and installing it on the mounting pipe, it was time for installing the radials.
Radials are critical to the performance of any vertical. Most hams put far too few radials under their vertical antenna to have it perform the way verticals do. They let half [...]
ZeroFive Antenna Installation
After receiving all of the parts and getting them in order, it was finally time to do the installation of the ZeroFive 40-10 vertical.
Digging the hole
As a reminder, the first piece done was digging the hole for the cement and the mounting pipe. In the Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest, this is [...]
ZeroFive Antenna Preparation
Earlier this year, I hinted at a new antenna project that I would be doing. Well, it’s finally done. Everything takes longer to do than expected, right?
After ordering the 40-10 ZeroFive antenna, Balun, coax, I left them in their boxes for a couple of weeks or more. Then, I started to get the pieces out [...]
Stacked Quads for 20-10 meters
There is a thread on the TowerTalk reflector about stacking quads. I have never heard of it being done, but one of the participants pointed us to DF3KV and his stacked quads for 20, 15, and 10 meters.
It is an impressive picture and gallery. You have to appreciate the effort it takes to get these [...]
Field Day Antennas — 5 Considerations
Field Day brings forth a wide range of antennas used for the event. Clubs even have their own stock of antennas, hidden in local garages, to spring on participants if needed.
Whether it is beams and towers or stuff with wires, here are some Field Day considerations for antennas:
Easy Does It
Antennas have to be put up [...]
