11meter wire antennas

I've an idea if you're going to get that push up pole which may work out of your flat window....

Get yourself one of these from Knights CB - their ref no is DPC-38. It's a dipole centre with two 3/8 threads on each end you can screw an antenna into.


Stick a couple of the longest stinger type mobile antennas you can on it, attach it to a pole and stick it out the window vertically for local contacts and horizontally if you want to try a bit of DX but beware that horizontally it'll be directional in the direction of your pole so if the antennas are pointing north and south it'll work east-west.

leno51 wrote:

Well ,,, Got all my gear ,, the 9900 , swr meter & matcher ,,psu ,, but the bazooka antenna isn't really doing the trick ... Gonna have to get the collapsable pole and stick a wire antenna on it and stick it out the window best I can ... 

I found myself in this very situation last winter with the same radio and a Sigma Excaliber, I don't think I actually heard another station with it let alone spoke to anybody with it.

Next, I tried the Sirio Signal Keeper in the loft which, admitedly, was an improvement but still wasn't great although given a bit of height I feel it was be a good compact antenna and I am holding onto it for future portable endeavours.

I bit the bullet and got a half wave vertical (silver rod) which once again was an improvement even when just on a ten foot pole but it really came into it's own when I added another extension taking it to just twenty feet where it is today and I am getting out really very well.

I feel more height would help but with antenna sensitive nieghbours who pro-actively seek things to complain about I am looking at the extending fiblegrass pole up through the centre of a tree on the garden that shouldn't catch people eye to much.
If I put it up and down a few times it is not deemed as a permanent structural change and like your garden shed it will require no planning permission, soon enough I will be able to leave it up permanently.

Stick with it, this is where I have seen several people give up sadly, they are so used to things being plug and play and they "spit the dummy" when it doesn't work right away for them.

Keep us updated with your progress, it is always interesting to hear how people get around the issues the modern world throws at us.

Alan

Nice post Alan. 
I just threw the bazooka outside half on a tree and its starting to work better now ..

I got a 10 meter sotabeam to see if I can get through the tree outside and it looks ok just a 10-15 % slant .. now to get a 5/8 wire antenna ..I'm also thinking about using the pole outdoors with one of their drive on pole stands ...

Hello Len,

You'd be better off hanging the antenna vertically in the tree next to your flats. 

73's Gary.

I know ,, but I'm in the bottom flat and it's on a pole.. I can take it down easier  ..?  The upper part is the radiator section ..and swr is very low ..
Getting out pretty well  ...all over London ..I need to rubber amalgamate the joints anyway so it's coming down again ,,A work in progress I guess ,, I never thought I would get it up that high at all to be honest ..but yea I know what you mean 

Soundmod wrote:

I’ve found a brilliant solution to a DX antenna from Hawkins Radio on Facebook and Ebay. Their Thunderbolt SSD 58+ appears to do exactly what I want, simple lightweight, easy to erect and ultra wide band. Take a look for yourselves. I will post how I get on with it when it arrives and conditions improves from the Zero activity that I presently have.

Regards all 73’s

Hi  
I use the Hawkins half wave on a 33ft fibreglass pole for a home base antenna and it works very well. 
Only £30 easy to use home base or static mobile. 
Pre tuned so I didn’t have any swr issues so perfect for me. I’m thinking of trying the 5/8 version to compare.

The ssd 58 is well made .. and low swr
Swr now is an incredible 1.0-1.1 across all 40 . of the muppets ..

It is great to see people overcoming the challenges of the modern world in regard to their radio hobby, many would have given up long ago I am sure.
You certainly look to have gained the height you needed and as you say you can do the fine tuning aspects now you know it's an effective solution you want to stick with.

I have a tree in my own garden I want to do something very similar with it's good to see it's not to eye-catching, in fact, I don't think you would notice it at all walking past you would have no reason to look up there really.
The Thunderbolt is on my shortlist of things to try along with 10m pole although that list has got a bit longer since setting up the HF station.

Thank you for including some photos, it is always good to see how these things look in situ, as before keep us updated, I for one am always interested to hear how these things progress.

73's

Alan

I like what Alan said above about people giving up.
Yes they would have years ago but now we have this............Internet.
A forum with all the knowledge you could ever need well many forums.
I was a rig Dr pre internet well at the start of it but didn't have it myself but it would have made the job soooo much easier.
Keep up the good work guy's

I'm keeping it this way for now , pretty invisible 

It goes against the grain with me to pay someone else to cut a bit of wire, and that goes back to my earliest years in radio, when it was perfectly normal to make your own wire antenna - for whatever band. Shop-bought antennas were things that we'd hear about the Yanks doing. Not for us, matey.
It still sticks with me. When I put the pole up I realised the guy ropes would make perfect supports for an 11m inverted-V, and so it proved. I have to drop the pole to put better ropes up as one of them has snapped, so when I do that I'll also add a couple of slopers using the ropes.
Cost? Not very much.

For me this is worth £54 https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iygAAOSwXSJbHv7M/s-l1600.jpg

leno51 wrote:

For me this is worth £54 https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/iygAAOSwXSJbHv7M/s-l1600.jpg

I feel very much the same way, so much so I have one winging it's way to me as we speak.

My collection of antenna odds and ends is certainly growing to a point I will be able to do more home brew projects and modifications but if you look at the seperate selling cost of the components you need to construct one it is difficult to see how these guys make a profit at times.(clearly they buy the components in bulk at a greatly reduced rate)

I am planning to mount this on a fishing pole up through a tree in the garden so I can do some side by side comparisons with my half wave vertical.

Going back to the original post about wire dx antennas - I had excellent results a few years back with an Extended Double Zepp. They are directional similar to a diipole but have twice the gain. There are commercial ones available,but I made mine. As far as I know there are 2 ways of constructing them.
Generally the top arms are 0.64 wavelength and the tuned feed is where they differ. I used a length of 450 ohm feeder terminated with a 1:1 balun and the other way is using a "tapered balun". I think this is the method used by "wire antennas".
I will try and dig out the dimensions I used and post.

Further to my post above.

I constructed my Extended Double Zepp trimmed for 27.555.

Each arm being 6.97m and fed with 1.49m of 450 ohm open wire feeder. a 1:1 balun and 50 ohm coax to the shack.

Been thinking of putting up something else, more wideband recently.
Decided on a G7FEK, it will fit nicely into the front yard and be too high for delivery trucks to snap.

The G7FEK as shown is excellent on 40m and 80m and will perform on 15m. Other bands can be used by adding vertical elements to the base of the open wire feeder and supporting from the horizontal arms. If you don't have the space to fit the 46 feet top you can reduce this as long as you compensate on the open wire feeder. If I remember correctly it requires 2 counterpoise/radials of 33 and 66 feet. Some folk have got excellent swr by raising the radials a foot or so above the ground.