On Mon,12/7/2015 2:13 PM, CRAIG SCHROEDER wrote:
I am pretty new ham and a brand new KX3/PX3 owner excited to try my hand at DX'ing! If you were buying your first HF base antenna, primarily looking for performance on 20 and 40 meters, what would you recommend?
Real hams don't BUY antennas, we BUILD them. Antennas are the most important part of any station, and until you get into a tri-band beam, it is easy to build better than you can buy, and for a tiny fraction of the cost.
First, BUY a copy of the ARRL Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book. STUDY (not quick read, but STUDY) these books so that you understand how antennas work. Next, STUDY the resources at your real estate -- what's available to support one or more wires up in the air? If the answer is nothing, then consider buying a multi-band vertical. Suggestions about that later.
If you can support only one point, use it to support one or two "fan" dipoles. Build one fan for 80 and 40M, and hang the center from the very top of your single support. If you have two supports widely spaced enough, hang it between them. Build a second fan dipole for 20, 15 and 10M. On these bands, 30-40 ft is a good height. Feed these antennas with 50 ohm coax. If the feedline will be much longer than about 100 ft, use RG8 to minimize feedline losses.
If you're limited to a vertical, go with the biggest Cushcraft R-series you can afford, and try to mount it on your roof. HF verticals work better up in the air than on the ground. Again, feed it with 50 ohm coax, use the bigger RG8 if the feedline is very long.
There are lots of practical tutorials about how to build antennas on my website. k9yc.com/publish.htm Start with the slide show and the short written piece about Antennas For Limited Space.
For portable QRP use -- start with plain ordinary insulated wire. #18 - #22 is a good size. Unroll a length close to a quarter wave, toss it into a tree, using string or rope to hold it up. Unroll a second length close to a quarter wave and connect it to the chassis of the KX3. Much cheaper and works far better than so-called QRP antennas that you buy. If there are no trees around where you plan to operate, buy one of the telescoping fiberglass poles designed to hold wire antennas and tape the wire to it that you would have tossed into a tree. Connect the second wire to the chassis. There's a photo of me on my qrz.com page doing exactly this about 12 years ago at a county park near Chicago. The rig is a K2.
73, Jim K9YC
Also, what do you suggest as a high performance field antenna for QRP?
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