Simple Ham Radio Antennas

Over the past few weeks, I've become fascinated with antennas mounted on or near the ground. I've even built a few, such as Mike Toia's (K3MT) "grasswire" antenna and a similar "earth" antenna from Australia.  A few months ago, I built a simple beverage antenna for my old Hallicrafters SX-62A receiver.  All or these wire antennas worked very well, especially for the AM broadcast band . With a few modifications, these wires can be used as a separate receive antenna for amateur radio stations located in noisy or desert areas.  I've used vertical antennas for transmitting and low-mounted antennas for receiving.   So, what are these ground hugging "long wires?" According to articles published in the "NASWA Journal" for December 1992 and January 1993 by author Joseph Buch, these antennas mounted on, near, or slightly below ground level are called "wave" antennas because "they extract energy from the wave as it tr

Are you looking for an inconspicuous amateur radio antenna that is largely invisible, yet delivers acceptable DX and local results?  An antenna idea described by Robert McGregor (VK3XZ) and published in the May, 1993 edition of " Amateur Radio " (Australian magazine) may suggest a few alternatives for hams facing restrictive HOAs and CC&Rs. A few weeks ago, Dean Manley (KH6B), gave me a copy of this fascinating article for my antenna reference library.  I've built several disguised antennas, ranging from K3MT's "grasswire" antenna to low-lying dipoles running just above my home garden.  But none of this antennas worked as well as "The Down To Earth Antenna" from Robert McGregor (VK3XZ). Here are some pertinent paragraphs from Robert's article. DOWN TO EARTH ANTENNA Australia and the African Desert have a common need for radio communication and a mainly sandy terrain. VK5TL's letter, AR Jan. '92 caused me to dig deep into a

I knew it would happen.  The time I ran out of antenna wire.  After several years of using old #14 AWG house wire, #18 AWG speaker wire from Radio Shack , and remnants from studio wiring projects at my former employer (Pacific Radio Group), I had finally exhausted my wire supply for homebrewed antennas.  What to do until the next sale at Lowe's, Home Depot , and Ace Hardware?  Give up? Banish the thought!. With last week's beautiful weekend before me, I needed some cheap wire to erect my latest antenna "masterpiece."  I found my resource in the kitchen in the form of a new roll of "Diamond Aluminum Foil"--the stuff my xyl uses for cooking tasty treats and dinners.  Since there were several new rolls near the stove, I decided to "borrow" a new roll and apologize later.  Besides, I would buy another roll the next time I visited the supermarket. According to the label on the container, the roll contained 66.66 yards (199.98 feet) or 60.96 meters

How would you like to have a simple dipole-like antenna that would give you almost 3dB over over the classical dipole antenna ?  You can if you're willing to build a Double Extended Zepp antenna for your favorite amateur radio band.   Now that I have enough room at my new home-in-progress in the Puna District of Hawaii Island, I decided to make a simple gain antenna for one of my favorite DX bands--20 meters. I had a spare MFJ telescoping fiberglass mast available, some leftover #14 AWG house wire in the garage, a spare 4:1 W9INN balun, a 50-ft./15.24 length of 450 ohm ladder line , a sturdy Drake MN-4 transmatch ("the tuner"), and 25-ft./7.62 meters of RG -8X coaxial cable with UHF connectors. I decided to configure the extended double zepp as an inverted V, knowing that its gain would be a bit less than a horizontal arrangement of a half wavelength dipole. With school over until mid-August, I thought this simple antenna project would give me something creat

My antenna "farm" at the new QTH finally is taking shape. So far, I've built and used successfully a 40-10 meter inverted V fed with ladder line , a 5/8 wavelength vertical for 20, 15, and 10 meters, a 135-ft/41.15 meters "classic doublet" fed with ladder line that works from 80-10 meters, and a 40-10 meter delta loop fed with ladder line.  I've described these antennas in past posts.  All of them work very well with relatively low power (less than 50 watts) with my older rigs (Argosy II, Swan 100 MX, Yaesu FT-7, and a Kenwood TS-520). Although I prefer multiband HF antennas fed with 450-ohm ladder line, I still use a few single or two-band antennas fed with 50-ohm coaxial cable when I wish to experiment on 40 or 15 meters.  Last Sunday, 18 May 2014, I decided to build a simple two-band dipole covering the 40 and 15 meter bands using a single piece of RG -8X coaxial cable. The dipole would be designed for the lowest frequency range and then use the thir

GOING TO THE FIELD FOR FUN AND SERIOUS BUSINESS Considering the amount of natural and human-made disasters making headlines this year, every amateur radio operator should have a "go-kit" should it be necessary to support your community in times of emergency.  Once you have this kit, practice using it so it becomes part of your support package. A "go-kit" should be portable, easy to set up, and contain the necessary equipment to get an amateur radio station on the air for emergency service.  Your emergency kit should also contain sufficient food, water, clothing, medical supplies, and personal items to last at least three days--more days if you can squeeze more stuff in your vehicle. So, with this in mind, I took inventory of the "back up station" I alway take with me in my Honda Odyssey van.  The station is simple and functional.  I schedule several portable operations each year to test out the equipment and my ability to operate in the field.  In

How would you like to have a simple, effective antenna for 20 meters thast will give you some gain over a ground plane antenna and exhibit a radiation angle of approximately 15 degrees? You can grab more DX (distance) at a modest cost by building a 5/8 wavelength vertical antenna working in conjunction with 1/4 wavelength radials beneath the main radiating element. I've built 5/8 wavelength antennas for 10 and 15 meters and they work very well.  If you desire multiband performance out of this antenna, you will need a balanced feed line (such as 450-ohm ladder line), a 4:1 current balun, and a sturdy ATU ( antenna tuning unit ).  If you prefer to use this antenna on one band only, you can establish resonance with a base loading coil that tunes the antenna to 3/4 wavelength  resonance.  Standard 1/4 wavelength wire radials are used with both versions of this antenna. According to William I. Orr (W6SAI) and Stuart D. Cowan (W2LX), "a 5/8 wavelength antenna provides imp