An Urban /Emergency Antenna with high performance

So my attempt to build a Sleeved Dipole type portable vertical antenna failed miserably when close to the ground /buildings leaving me sad, with a pile of 'used' coax and wire.

I'd set myself a goal of an antenna working near the ground/buildings, good local coverage (so a vertical) lots of easy tuning options, wide enough to cover UK and CEPT bands without retuning and a 'no ladders /weight throwing' set up process..

Then I also thought I'd better try and re-use the old bits in a new way; which resulted in an antenna I haven't tried or even seen before and that works really well at ground level once set up.

I'd combined the 1/4 wave coaxial sleeve with a 'coax 1/4 wave rod' on sloping radials, using the sleeve part as one radial.

The result was very good matching and bandwidth even at low height and right next to the house.    Good local and DX path results (based on very early tests and reports) and some fun moving the garden chairs around for perfection rather than climbing the roof 50 times. . 

To avoid a long read I've put what I did in a paper that should allow it to be easily understood and repeated if anyone wants to try it..   

Looks like you've had a bit of fun with your antenna experiments there Bruce.

Antenna discussions on this forum (and many others) can be a bit contentious at times but if it's working for you who is anyone to argue.

(I extended my doublet recently for improved lower band performance and surprised myself when I gained better performance higher up the bands too!)

There's been some good conditions recently on the higher HF bands so I hope you have some fun trying out the DX potential with it.


All the best,
Victor


(Oh yeah, we don't do .pdf but your image does the job nicely.)