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Dipole antennas ?..

Oatmeal

Active Member
Mar 22, 2009
484
78
38
West Virginia..
Good morning, what kinda dipole antenna you all using and how high is it ?
Right now, I'm running a end fed which is 50ft off the ground, does ok...
 

Oatmeal: I am running a pair of "Phased" Doublets presently.
The Doublet is basically a Dipole variant, instead of fed with coax it is fed with 300/450/600 Ohm twin-lead. The antenna is about 45-50 ft at the Apex with the ends 25-35 feet above the ground. I have been using this variation for about 7 or 8 years now.
I have run a single Doublet antenna also. I have found them to be an effective All-Band antenna.
I have used them in length from 326 and 260 feet overall length for 160 thru 15 meters, and 124 feet for 80 thru 15 meters.
I have always used an outboard manual tuner to feed with.
I have had the best performance when tuned with a Double " L" (homebrew or presently PALSTAR BT1500A) or also the Link Coupled tuner (Johnson Matchbox). I also have used a DENTRON MT2000 or 3000 with a built-in 4:1 balun.
These all have worked well, it takes practice and a little experimenting with feedline length to get all bands on the tuners with the built-in baluns, however finding the "sweet spot" for all bands just take time and practice.
The Twinlead or Ladder line, whether 300/450 or 600 Ohm is brought Directly to the tuner. This eliminates the high loss from coax when being used at VSWR greater than 2.5:1 which can occur with any multi-band antenna fed with coax.
Many here on the forum have run a similar version, or presently running this type.
They are hard to beat!

http://ftp.unpad.ac.id/orari/librar...ant/docs/Introducing the All-Band Doublet.htm

http://ai4ji.com/Projects/antennas/doublet.htm

This my variant.
w8jk1.gif

124 feet overall with 34 ft spacing. I love it! It's a killer!:LOL:
I'll explain later if you are interested.
All the Best
Gary
 
20 meter dipole. 14 guage wire with 1:1 balun. Inverted V. Highest point is 18'. Ends are at 6'.
SWR:
1.3 @ 14.150
1.1 @ 14.250
1.2 @ 14.350
Works great. (y)
 
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Good morning, what kinda dipole antenna you all using and how high is it ?
Right now, I'm running a end fed which is 50ft off the ground, does ok...

I had a 15m dipole strung up in my Garage. I would open up the garage door and use it like that. I was surprised at how well it worked only 10' from the floor. I've since moved to an indoor-second-floor MLA .
 
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I used inverted vee 20 and sometime a trapped 20/40 portable all the tme. Most often with 30(ish) watts. Constantly manage the minimum of 4 contacts each time out. Here is from Aug 2017 antenna setup and a map of contacts.The mast is a avi probe that is about 8'6" and with this time 10 watts.
windy peak hf antenna.jpg
windy 2017.png
 
Last edited:
Nice, I no the end fed isn't a dipole....it seems to do pretty well tho, have it hung about 50ft high, and have about 150ft of coax going to the shack, been running mine for a few years now.....

Just curious what u guys run..
 
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The end fed antennas, seems to favor the direction the tail is in, I no at the old place we lived at it worked really well up there, since we moved, haven't had a lot of time to fool with it much.......but here have a lot of room for antennas...
 
Have a question for you guys....

How do you hang your G5RV/ZS6BKW dipole and support the center, I have tree's in the back yard, but there against the bottom of a mountain, and have a couple out front, and would like to string mine across the yard using a tree on each end of the property back/front, but problem doing this, there's no tree in the middle to support the center, how do you all hang one like this ?...
 
Have a question for you guys....

How do you hang your G5RV/ZS6BKW dipole and support the center, I have tree's in the back yard, but there against the bottom of a mountain, and have a couple out front, and would like to string mine across the yard using a tree on each end of the property back/front, but problem doing this, there's no tree in the middle to support the center, how do you all hang one like this ?...

Can you run some dacron rope from tree to tree and then hang the antenna from the rope? This method will also help you get the feed point high up in the clear.
 
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