How to make a flat side inverted V wire antenna

Cut two lengths of wire 21.33 feet and join to a four screw plastic chocolate box connector.

Take the coax , cut enough shield off and join the braid and the centre core to other side of the chocolate box connector and cover with electrical tape

Use fishing line or string and get as high as you can perhaps use the back of the house and then a high point in the garden ,say a tree and tie off but keep the degrees greater than 45

Suspend and let it float flat side high enough from the washing line.

Made one today SWR 1:3 matched down to 1:1

Brilliant for DX working flat side giving you a cheap home brew antenna

Enjoy 26 CT 3543

Mark

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Simple flat sided dipole or inverted Vs at about half wave above ground do make great skip shooters. I make use of choc blocks too for construction, makes it easy not just for attaching feed but also for adding extra wire to ends.

I'd question the length though. It would be more efficient to cut to resonance and skip the atu. It's a bit too long at 21.33' per leg even for 12m band.

SangueG wrote:

Simple flat sided dipole or inverted Vs at about half wave above ground do make great skip shooters. I make use of choc blocks too for construction, makes it easy not just for attaching feed but also for adding extra wire to ends.

I'd question the length though. It would be more efficient to cut to resonance and skip the atu. It's a bit too long at 21.33' per leg even for 12m band.

Yeah, odd length, I wonder if it's a bit like the semi-mythical 43' vertical that is a 'match on any' band? 

Who uses feet anyway? 3.149m sounds a lot better

Always love hearing of antenna experiments and constructions especially when utilising materials available to hand.
(Used 'chocolate' block on more than one occasion myself. )


Great also for others to add any information that may help also, remembering that they are offering assistance rather than any form of negative criticism.


Look forward to more.  

All the best,
Victor

This link ( https://www.hamuniverse.com/dipivcal.html ) about inverted V's does explain why the length may not be as expected for a standard dipole. 

I use a vertical dipole for 10/11 and I am definitely going to try an inverted V just as soon as the weather warms up a bit. I'll try anything, experimentation as all part of the fun of radio.

Nothing better that trying aerials but the station commander is getting a bit peed off as i don't like taking them down.
I use feet and inches but i am old lol.

Alan Pilot wrote:

I use feet and inches but i am old lol.

I have to confess I always have a chuckle when I hear our American friends say things like “For a 20 metre dipole, you want an overall length of about 33 feet”.

I am limited to just 2, as she calls it, 'poles', in the garden. I have a little leeway with what is on the poles. I think an inverted V might just be an acceptable extra,

I use imperial and metric and I'm old, we were taught both in primary school. I prefer metric for when I have to measure anything.

Only got 4
Cobweb 7 band.
End-fed 80 to 10m.
Multi band vertical.
2M/70CM.
O and a 11m magmount sat on the bbq lol.
Good job we only have a small garden.

Alan Pilot wrote:

Only got 4
Cobweb 7 band.
End-fed 80 to 10m.
Multi band vertical.
2M/70CM.

Exactly the same here, less the multi-band vertical, and my VHF/UHF is a triband with 23cm too.

Wife is unimpressed, and thanks to my mate winding her up, is now worried what she’ll come back to after her girls week away in Jan. 

Halo for 50MHz
Vertical dipole for 28MHz  <----- will try an inverted V
Modified YouLoop for MW receive
1/4 wave vertical for 7MHz <----- will try to make multi-band

Alan Pilot wrote:

Only got 4
Cobweb 7 band.
End-fed 80 to 10m.
Multi band vertical.
2M/70CM.
O and a 11m magmount sat on the bbq lol.
Good job we only have a small garden.

I am the station commander and that means whatever I want.
10metre mast with Create logperiodic for 6metres to 23cms
A Hustler 6BTV with 17metres and 65 radials.
A Spiderbeam 10metre alloy mast with cobweb at 8metres
80cms offset dish on a 3metre pole for QO-100

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That tower will look good.
Pictures when you get it sorted ????.

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Some interesting feedback guys and its all good fun
When I put 11 meters in to one conversion chart it wanted me to make each element 27.33ft, even I knew that was wrong.On another site 21.3ft so we went with that , yes it needs cutting or bending over but I’m pretty pleased to see how it will work.

Sorry I’m old school too in feet and inches at the age of 57, lol

Nowt wrong with feet and inches.
But talking about the 36.0892 ft band wouldn't sound right lol.
Old school too and even older.
And then there is our Victor lol.

Morning Mark. I am sure you will get it to work. You might even get some very low angle take off from it. I say 'might' as I don't use any modelling software, am a bit old school myself and just like to read up, cut to shape and just see how it works.

The length you have is a very strange length, wonder if the calculator is work correctly or incorrect value has been entered possibly? I'll post a scan below from an old book I have often referred back to that gives some length for the flat and v dipoles. You';ll need to go approx half way between the figures for the 10 and 12 band and gives overall lengths, so you need to just divide by 2 to get leg lengths. You can tell it's an old reference because as well as having measurements in feet, it also lists the v dimensions as being longer that the flat, which many online texts and calculators wrongly quote the other way around now (though height above ground and surroundings also affect length).



I have no doubt you'll make some contacts though. The longest elements in my loft are for 20m, but the atu in my rig will match all the wires connected to the end of my coax to 40m, and even though it can't be greatly efficient, I have had a few contacts on that band using. Will be interesting to see how well your long dipole works, do give some feedback when you've played with it for a while, it will be good to know for future experiments.


Nice tower Wayne. I wouldn't even be allowed to mount a 1/2 wave silver rod at ground level *sighs*

A quick rattle through the old noggin of the numbers Mark - Coincatcher was given by an online calculator makes no sense unless the code utilised had errors such as the typical imperial to metric conversions.

If the 27.33ft he was originally given was 2.733m and then subtract the velocity factor of insulated wire you get perfect dimensions for an 11m dipole!

There's quite a few online 'calculators' full of such coding/conversion errors which is perplexing for anyone let alone someone experimenting for the first time.

Still, it's great that everyone has offered a hand and I'm enjoying the banter with it. 


Imperial vs Metric? 
I still call CB frequencies 27MHz and have to pause to mention 11m, but then I remember radios marked in Kc/s and Mc/s!
(Kilocycles per second and Megacycles per second.)

'Domestic' sets were marked as such and anything with Meters was a 'Foreign' radio set, (even when they tried marking 'Metres').

Plus Imperial measurements were much easier to calculate in your head, especially if you remembered the simple 12 inches is 1 foot and were good with fractions. Nowadays every pulls the calculator out even if it's an 'App' on their phone.  


Only recently I asked someone on air to QSY to VHF at 145.350MHz Simplex, with which they replied, "Is that two meters?" 


BTW - Loving your tower Wayne.  
Round these parts the 'villagers' would be turning up with pitchforks and burning torches!! Under the guise of the 'Parish Council'.

Victor wrote:

Plus Imperial measurements were much easier to calculate in your head, especially if you remembered the simple 12 inches is 1 foot and were good with fractions. Nowadays every pulls the calculator out even if it's an 'App' on their phone.  

Jesus, how is it easier to work in denominations like 12, 3, 36, 1760, etc. rather than 100, 1000, etc.

I bet you prefer old money too?   

I was taught metric at school, but my parents were imperial only, and in the 70's and 80's everything was measured in yards, gallons, pounds and ounces (Oh, yeah, 16,14, etc etc, not even bloody consistent in what weird number to use!) so I had to know both.

Give me metric any day of the week, especially for engineering.  20 thou vs. 0.5mm.

As for calculators, well, blame the education system for that...people can't do simple math in their head, or spell, but are experts in wokism and critical race theory.  What progress!  

Anyway, rant over, and I'll go back to being jealous about that tower!

Ha! Ha! Ha!

Still amazes me Jeff how people get worked up over Imperial measurements.
(Then usually mention archaic historical measurement quantities.)

I'm on about the simple measurement and engineering process of it all, half of 9 foot is 4 foot 6 inches, half an inch is a simple quarter of an inch, 8th, 16th, 32nd, 64th, etc. etc.

Not much different than the 'Ham' 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, etc. nice numbers for the mind.  


Mind you when I worked in the semiconductor industry we worked from 3 inch slices to 5 inch then 7 inches....but then again we measured 'thickness' in metric microns and angstroms!