Simple Ham Radio Antennas--Open-Wire Dipole Antenna


If you're having trouble viewing this video, please insert this title link into your browser search box: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPk45MVFpY. This is post #975 in a continuing series on simple ham radio antennas. Here's another great idea for an inexpensive, efficient, and easily made antenna suitable for either home or portable use.

In this video, science writer Stan Gibilisco (W1GV) shows us how to design, build, and use an open-wire dipole antenna.  This antenna, designed for the lowest HF band of your choice, and fed with 450 ohm ladder line, 300 ohm television twin lead, or 600 ohm balanced feeders and attached to your transceiver via a balanced ATU or a balun/"tuner" combination will cover several HF amateur radio bands with only one antenna.

This particular antenna uses 450 ohm ladder line to feed two equal horizontal antenna elements, each measuring 20 meters/65.6 feet.  Used with a suitable ATU, this antenna will cover all amateur radio bands between 80 and 10 meters.

You can deploy this antenna in a variety of configurations, including horizontal dipole, inverted vee, and half-wave sloper.  The emergency HF antenna at my new homesite in the Puna District of Hawaii Island is an inverted vee using Stan's measurements and fed with 450 ohm ladder line into a 4:1 balun/manual tuner combination. The antenna works very well from my location in the Central Pacific.  The open-wire dipole also performs admirably on the international shortwave bands. If you need a versatile, multiband HF antenna, then the open-wire dipole may be what you're looking for.  Besides, it's more fun "rolling your own."

For the latest Amateur Radio news and information, please visit these websites:

http://www.HawaiiARRL.info.
https://oahuarrlnews.wordpress.com.
https://bigislandarrlnews.wordpress.com
http://kh6jrm.info (breaking news for radio amateurs).

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http://hawaiisciencedigest.com

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Opinions expressed in the blog are mine unless otherwise stated.

Thanks for joining us today!

Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

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Thank you for visiting my Amateur Radio Blog. I value your comments and suggestions. For Amateur Radio Antenna Topics and Discussions, stay here. For Amateur Radio News and Trends, please visit my news site at https://bigislandarrlnews.com.
Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

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