Simple Antennas for Amateur Radio Operators--a continuing series
A NEW ANTENNA FOR APARTMENT DWELLERS The July 2012 issue of "QST" contains an interesting antenna article by Jeffery Brone, WB2JNA. The article entitled "A Dipole Doesn't Have to be Straight--There's always a way to put some kind of antenna into service" runs from page 36 to page 37. Brone's idea may give you another way to get on the air despite severe space restrictions. Simply put, Brone ran approximately 35 feet of light gauge wire (#22 or #24 AWG) to a balcony of his third floor apartment and ran another 35 feet around the apartment, "tacked up along the ceiling and corners, resulting in a full size dipole for 40 meters." He fed the antenna through a MFJ manual tuner with 3 feet of homemade laddder line (2 inch spacing between the wires) "and it loads up on all bands--40 through 10 meters." Running low power (15 watts cw), Brone has been able to work Chagos Island, Africa, and South America. Brone says common sense ...