The Wideband Inverted V Maco Pole

[Yankee]

I Love my wire dipole. For my location and conditions, a dipole is my best option. Always did good for me. But for the last year, I've been looking for more. The wire dipole seems to be a static sucker. If there is any static in the air, the wire will vacuum it right out and down into my radio. I've tried filters and all the tricks used with old radios and it still sounded like Niagra Falls. This led me to think about using beam type tubing for the dipole legs. That should get the crashing static out and be wide banded. And it works. I finally put it all together today, using the cross beam from a Maco BA-1 that was a miserable failure here. I cut the one radial in half and used the two 1/4 wavlength sections to make the legs for the dipole.

I started with a Dual Core 1:1 Current balun that can handle a lot of power without getting saturated. It's strong and uses stainless hardware. The legs as I mentioned are from a worthless Maco BA-1, then I also bought two 4 foot sections of extruded aluminum tubing to extend the Maco legs, and make them length adjustable to work at 10m, 11m and 15m bands. I tested this today and it works with SWR well under 1.4 @ 10 meters and 1.2 @ 15M. I will be able to fine tune this tomorrow when I do the final touch up to my construction. One thing I was hoping for, but didn't work out, was the hinges would not hold the weight of the tubes, so I had to use plastic line to support the ends.

Here's a few pics.

 

[wavrider]

Looks good,
Might want to put a stand off on the top of your pole to get the balun and wire away from the metal of the pole.

Wrap some sort or strain relief in your coax so the weight of the coax is not on the PL259 connection.

Just a simple wrap of the coax and a zip tie tied off to the pole will work to relieve the weight from the PL259.

Thanks for posting pics

 

[Yankee]

Thanks for looking Waverider. The day after I took those pics, I bought a 3 section push up pole, goes to 24 feet. It's a painters pole. So of course, my standoff is a modified paint roller handle without the roller on it. Give me a couple days and I will post those pics. I still use a pulley to get it up and down. The past week has been really windy, 50mph or so they say, and it's still standing. I have included an air choke just below the Balun, probably not needed, but it's there, adding more weight. I have to make my final adjustments before the snow flies tho, so it won't be long. The important part is, it works and it works really well.