Simple Ham Radio Antennas

An excellent discussion of vertical antennas and the radial systems needed to maintain maximum performance of vertical HF antennas.  A good, basic review of vertical antennas for new and experienced radio amateurs. If you can't see the video, please insert this title URL into your browser search box:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X6bSIECESk Here are some additional comments from "TheSmokinApe Video Channel": In this video, we discuss vertical antennas, ground planes, and radials for ham radio. We also use a tool called MMANA-GAL to do some antenna modeling. Please consider supporting TheSmokinApe Channel on Patreon Here: https://www.patreon.com/TheSmokinApe Links to products in the video: https://www.amazon.com/shop/TheSmokinApe As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Check out my Antenna Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list ... If you liked this video you can see more like it here: http://www.youtube.com/TheSmokinApe You can al...

Let's Do Ground Planes Again : "Let's Do Ground Planes Again from Alan Applegate, K0BG on January 24, 2015." Editor's Note : Due to the popularity of some of eHam's older articles, many of which you may not have read, the eHam.net team has decided to rerun some of the best articles that we have received since eHam's inception. These articles will be reprinted to add to the quality of eHam's content and in a show of appreciation to the authors of these articles." This article was originally published on: 07/02/2007 Let's Do Ground Planes Again The Spanish language has a whole bunch of words which mean hot, while English gropes around with about two or three. Spanish gets a little fuzzier with the word Ground, but not nearly as much as English. We have the ground we walk on, hollowed ground, DC grounds, AC grounds, RF grounds, and grounds for divorce! We also have polo grounds , capital grounds, football grounds, common grounds, pro...

.If you need an emergency or portable antenna for 20 meters, then this video by Dave (W0ZF) will get you on the air quickly and inexpensively. The only materials I had to buy were some nylon rope and a telescoping fiberglass fishing pole from the Hilo " Sports Authority " outlet. The pole cost me $30.00. I followed Dave's instructions and soon had a light weight portable antenna that performed well in a local beach park I used for testing. The vertical element should be a quarter wavelength for the 20 meter frequency of your choice. I chose 14.200 MHz and cut my vertical element and my radial wires to a length of 16.47 feet (16 feet, 5.6 inches)/5.02 meters. My coaxial feedline was 50 feet/15.24 meters of RG-8X coaxial cable with UHF connectors. I used a spare Budwig Hi-Que center coax connector to attach the antenna elements, with the + side connected to the vertical element and the - side connected to the ground radial system. My antenna wire and radials wer...