Simple Ham Radio Antennas

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...

Whenever I get a day off from my substitute teaching duties, I try to attend meetings of the Hawaii QRP Club at the Hilo, Hawaii Jack In The Box Restaurant.  The meetings usually last from 0600 to 0900 local time and cover a variety of topics, from antennas to homebrewed equipment.  Attendance varies from to 2 to 7 or 8 persons, depending on who's working or free for the day.  Dean Manley (KH6B) usually brings some of his antenna notebooks and his vast storehouse of experience as a radio broadcast engineer to the meetings.  There's always something interesting or new at these gatherings. Recently, some of us have been discussing homebrewed antennas that can be operated from areas restricted by HOAs, CC&Rs , or just plain lack of space.  One of the most intriguing antenna ideas came from the late Sam Kumukahi (KH6AFS), who, during the 1990s, used what he called a "James Bond" antenna with excellent results for local and occasional DX contacts.  At ...

A few days ago I read a fascinating antenna article by Cecil Moore (W5DXP) on the http://www.eham.net website.  Cecil described what he called a " Multi-Band 33-ft dipole" that works on 20, 17, 15, and 10 meters without an antenna "tuner" (i.e. transmatch ).  The secret to this outstanding antenna was the use of 450 ohm ladder line in conjunction with a series of switches and relays that selected the proper length of ladder line used to feed the antenna.  Depending on the band of use, Cecil could insert and remove sections of ladder line with his relay/switch system so that swr across his chosen band remained low.  By carefully selecting which section of feed line to add or subtract, he got a decent performing antenna without having to resort to a transmatch or "tuner." Cecil's idea got me thinking of ways to improve the dipoles I'm using at my new home site.  Although his idea has a lot of merit, I felt the need to build something a bit simpl...