Hey Mike:
I would love to get the PDF with the info. This sounds exactly like what
I am looking for.
Thanks!
Ken/NO4D
Mike Morrow wrote:
Ken wrote:
...I would like to construct a good portable antennae to use while camping
I have played around with multi-band HF antennas for camping and backpacking
for more than 30 years. I've tried resonant dipoles with and without traps,
untuned dipoles fed with balanced line, simple and complex verticals, fed-fed
wires, etc.
I have never found anything that works as well as the least-expensive of the
above...the resonant dipole. I have never found anything that works as poorly
as verticals. Portable verticals, lacking a very good ground system, are very
poor in performance compared to a dipole, if a side-by-side comparison at the
same site and the same time is done. Outrageously priced vertical "dummy
loads," such as those produced under the "Outbacker" name (with that bogus
"ground coupling" base) are among the very worst. Most (or all) commercial
vertical offerings allow the waste of hundreds of dollars to prove that contacts
can still be made using the poorest of antenna systems.
For the past 20 years I've used a dipole with appropriate insulators located
in each leg that can be jumpered to get a resonant dipole, without traps, on
any band between 40m and 10m. I use PCV water tubing for the insulators, and
flex- or super-weave wire that has withstood many set-up/take-down cycles
without the first sign of wire fatique failure. It takes less than a minute
to lower the antenna and alter the jumpers to change band. I have worked more
than 40 countries from camp sites using this antenna less than 10 feet above
ground. I can send anyone interested a small .pdf file that describes all the
details and dimensions. It's all quickly home-made at very low cost.
Mike / KK5F
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