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Dipole connection homemade
- Thread starter ih2425
- Start date
Like any wire dipole you have two choices.....
#1 - Strip back enough coax to make your connection. Twist the shield, connect it to one side, and connect the center wire to the other end. Seal it up real good with RTV sealant to keep water from soaking into the coax, and leave a big enough loop at the point of rotation so you don't put stress on it.
#2 - Wire an SO-239 connector between the two legs of the dipole, securely mount the SO-239 as clse as possible to the connection point. Again, seal with RTV sealant to keep moisture out of the works, and leave enough of a loop in the coax to keep from putting stress on the wire.
Either way you go...(connection wise)....your loop should be big enough so that the antenna can make a full 360° turn and still have a little slack in it. I used to set my rotatable antennas up with the starting point set at 0° dead magnetic North, and swing them around to 360°, after that you have to swing it back around........
#1 - Strip back enough coax to make your connection. Twist the shield, connect it to one side, and connect the center wire to the other end. Seal it up real good with RTV sealant to keep water from soaking into the coax, and leave a big enough loop at the point of rotation so you don't put stress on it.
#2 - Wire an SO-239 connector between the two legs of the dipole, securely mount the SO-239 as clse as possible to the connection point. Again, seal with RTV sealant to keep moisture out of the works, and leave enough of a loop in the coax to keep from putting stress on the wire.
Either way you go...(connection wise)....your loop should be big enough so that the antenna can make a full 360° turn and still have a little slack in it. I used to set my rotatable antennas up with the starting point set at 0° dead magnetic North, and swing them around to 360°, after that you have to swing it back around........
Are we to assume you are making your dipole of wire, or some other material?
I made one of pipe that would be easy to rotate:
Hopeful DX Dipole
I made one of pipe that would be easy to rotate:
Hopeful DX Dipole
Wow, that is one HEFTY dipole!
Whatever you do, ih, be sure to insulate it from the mast if you use metal. The last rotatable dipole I built was made of wire taped to crappie poles, and the mount was a 3" x 3' strip of 3/8" plywood. If were going to leave that up for a while I would have fiberglassed the plywood (and fiberglassed plywood makes a very good plate for mounting a beam to a mast also).
Rick
It's not up now, but it was great on bandwidth. No DX was rolling at the time so I couldn't do much with it. I did make a solid contact on a little sporadic skip from here in NW Arkansas to McAllen, (South) Texas, on 27.425.
It was horizontal so locally there wasn't any use for it.
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