Simple Ham Radio Antennas

An excellent video guide to building, erecting, and maintaining a simple 80-10 meter loop antenna . Lynn (NG9D) covers the basics in a short, well-produced video that can be applied to many home situations. With careful attention to detail and choice of wire, the antenna is fairly stealthy--something of concern to many of us "penned in" by neighbors and nearby buildings. Lynn uses commonly available RG-58 and RG-59 for the feedline. If you can't find two tall supports, try designing the antenna as a delta loop. A tall tree limb or a telescoping fiberglass mast could serve as the apex of the loop. If space is a concern, you could build the loop for 40-10 meter coverage. If you're worried about high SWR on the coax, feed the loop in a bottom corner with 450-ohm ladder line . Run the ladder line to a balanced antenna tuner or to a 4:1 balun. Fifty-ohm coax would then run from the balun to your antenna transmatch (tuner) and onto your rig. Either way, the ...

Humans tend to collect things.  Amateur radio operators are no exception.  In my 37 years as a licensed amateur radio operator, I've collected enough electronics-related material to fill most of my garage/radio shack at my new home in the Puna District .  Fortunately, I've managed to keep things organized, more or less, with plastic storage bins and some old filing cabinets. During the ongoing moving process, I discovered antennas, books, logs, and parts once given up for lost.  Such was the case Monday, 17 March 2014, when I reorganizing some of the material brought to the new QTH.  I found several well-sealed boxes containing some of my successful antenna projects.  All the antennas were dipoles built during my over three decades of "warming the ether" with a variety of old tube rigs long since gone to to the great capacitor in the sky.  After I finished using these antennas, I had the foresight to clean and store them for future use.  Also a...

Like many amateur radio operators, I've collected many boxes of electronic parts, various lengths of coaxial cable , and assorted rigs over the past 38 years.  I suppose my "shack" is testament to my "pack rat" tendencies.  I rationalize this collective habit by saying all of this material will become useful some day.  That some day was Thursday, 13 March 2014.  I had several lengths of RG-58 coaxial cable that had seen better days.  The assorted 100-ft/30.48 meters and 50-ft/15.24 meters lengths were gathering dust in the corner of the garage serving as the storeroom for my radio room.  The connectors were in good shape and the vinyl covering was intact, although a bit grey from sun exposure.  I wanted to find a use for the old cable ,now that it had been "retired" from active service. Why not use the old coax as a low noise receiving antenna for 80 meters, which was a very noisy band even in my remodeled home in the Puna District of Hawaii Islan...