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INSTALLING A99 TOMORROW, PROBLEMATIC?

Stellasarat

Stellasarat

Active Member
Sep 17, 2013
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I will be installing it in the clearing or my backyard. I can only get it 5 ft in the air. I have no other choice. It's this or nothing. What problems may I encounter, because of the lack of height? The branch my dipole was strung from is no longer there. I really want to get on the air. I cannot put the antenna on my home. Has anyone ever installed a base antenna this low to the groud? What should I exspect? Some people have already whaighed in. One encouraging reply compared it to his mobile Wilson which is only four ft in the air, on his car of cause and his signal got out fine.. Is this a good comparison? I'm hoping to qsl atleast 15 miles. I need advice. Please whaigh in. .. thanks to all.
 

I have talked skip to guys that have had their imax only 1-2' off the ground and they were getting out ok,, it wont be ideal but when the conditions are good your way you should be able to get out some.
 
There is no magical number to shoot for except as high as you can safely get it. If 5' is all you can do than 5' it is. 50' would be better, but it'll work.
 
Ham operators do it all the time... Shouldn't be any big deal, and it should work ok. You might look into running ground radial wires in the grass. Lots of info on this, just do a search on ground mounted vertical HF antennas. It's not ideal, but no antenna installation REALLY is. Compromise, compromise. Don't let anyone tell you it won't work, or that you won't be able to work DX. I have ran a dipole about 8 feet off the ground, as well as an end fed half wave at the same height. Worked Bosnia with the end fed that way!

73,
Brett
 
the A99 uses the first 9 feet of coax coming out of the bottom of the antenna for matching purposes, and this should be run straight down from the base of the antenna.

as for only having 5 feet to work with; i cant tell you for sure whether this will cause SWR issues for you as ive never tried it.

all i can say is that if you could get 10 feet above ground, you would be just fine.

in the past, i have used a tripod mounted to a 4'x4' piece of plywood held down with sandbags, with a 10 foot mast, and this has worked just fine for me.

two 6 foot pieces of round tubing, one slightly smaller than the other, would give you a nice telescoping mast if you needed to lower the antenna a bit when not on the air.
just cut a slit about 6" long in the larger piece and use a couple of good hose clamps to tighten it.

if none of this seems to be feasible, you might look into putting up a half-square antenna.
it looks like an upside down U, and the ends can be mounted right at ground level.
it is fed from one of the top corners, and you dont need an antenna tuner because it will be 50 ohms.
yes, it will only be bi-directional, but for skip work, that really shouldnt matter much.
it also has a bit of db gain!

do a google search for "half-square antenna" and you will find some plans.
its probably one of the cheapest, most invisible antennas that you can make.

good luck,
LC
 
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At that height, the A99 ground losses will be high. If the antenna is somewhat in the clear, then the SWR will be low, which isn't as good as it sounds.
 
I ran a ground mounted BTV (multi band trapped verticle) for years, feedpoint was about 18" off the ground.

lots of buried radials (1500 feet of wire)<More audio>

I worked a lot of (low TOA) DX with it
 
My A99 had a 1.7:1 lying sideways three feet off the ground when I tuned mine so yours standing vertically should have a slightly lower vswr.
Just remember,low height for skip,high height for local talk. There's one guy I know that runs his A99 on top of a three element Maco horizontal beam antenna 20 feet off the ground. He didn't have good local propagation but he used his mainly for skip.
 
If y'all re-read the original post; he stated that he can go no more than 5 ft up. So it is not a question of how to put it up higher; it is a question if it will work at that 5 ft height. And it should.
 
Stellasarat said:
I will be installing it in the clearing or my backyard. I can only get it 5 ft in the air. I have no other choice. It's this or nothing. What problems may I encounter, because of the lack of height? The branch my dipole was strung from is no longer there. I really want to get on the air. I cannot put the antenna on my home. Has anyone ever installed a base antenna this low to the groud? What should I exspect? Some people have already whaighed in. One encouraging reply compared it to his mobile Wilson which is only four ft in the air, on his car of cause and his signal got out fine.. Is this a good comparison? I'm hoping to qsl atleast 15 miles. I need advice. Please whaigh in. .. thanks to all.
Click to expand...

What kind of radio equipment/amps are you using?
Flat terrain/hilly?
 
I will be useing a sonar fs 2340 for am and a uniden Madison for ssb, amp is a Palomar elite 500. The amp dk's on high at 325, almost 200 on low. I occasionaly switch between rigs all are 23 and 40 channel tube rigs. All my cb's dk no higher than 3 1/2.
 
(y)I am now using a Siro new Tornado My Imax 2000 was 10 feet higher. I am getting better results with the Sirio. I mounted the Imax at 5 feet from the base outside near the pool area and use a 3 amp power supply with a PC78XL with great results and all the locals can't tell the difference. Try it and check your match. if you have a good match I would bet money you can get out good.
If you go to CBRadioMagazine.com - Radiowavz Bazooka Antenna Review and check out this review you could set up this antenna and put it away if you have to. If you haven't been to this site before You should spend some time there.Enjoy
 

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