[Antennas] Antenna For Local Use....

Thu Mar 6 20:32:57 EST 2014

On Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 1:28 AM, George Frederick <gefred08 at gmail.com> wrote:
> de w1ksw..... Dick, Since you mentioned "in the desert" you will find a
> "full-wave" horizontal loop antenna around 288 foot long (bare wire),
> elevated 15-30 foot, should work very well. I have used aluminum welding
> wire with great success for the past few years. It weathers extremely well.
> Add a few conductors if you are running substantial power to handle the
> current in the loop. I use single .030 inch wire to handle 100 watts no
> problem. Loop antennas do not need earth "to work against" and therefore
> are very stable in dry(or wet) ground conditions. Use an LDG 1:4 balun or a
> homemade 1:2.5 air-core transformer and you will find most rigs with
> internal tuners will easily tune-up on most amateur bands if you get the
> overall loop length just right. Unfortunately that means when cut for the
> lower end of 80 meters to get all the higher frequencies to work
> harmonically. But add a sufficient coil and you can use it on both 80
> (with) and all the rest (without). Or, make it longest for 80 and shorten
> it 10-20 foot to work all the rest of the bands. It will even work well
> on 6 & 2 meters too.
> 73 George af6jt
>
When calculating your point of resonance in the lower 80M portion look
closely at where your harmonics fall in the higher bands. It may seem a bit
off but in the long run it will pay off to have the harmonics fall where
they should or close as they will be harder to tune than the lower
frequencies. I have a spread sheet that shows this and use it for multiple
wire antenna designs.
My 2 bits.
Back under my rock
http://www.qrz.com/db/kd5ckp