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Old July 26th 03, 11:23 PM
Dr. Slick
 
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"Dominick(dblacklab)" wrote in message ...
Can anyone help me "homebrew" a goos FM Pirate radio antenna?
Help! Please!



You can make a 1/4 wave vertical antenna very easily. If you only need
it to work for a short while, then you can use cheesy materials as
follows:

Get a UHF panel mount receptacle, SO-239. Find some brass rod that will
fit into the solder lug on the connector. you will need about a 30"
length of this for the element. The formula is length(inches) =
2800/freq(MHz). Solder the rod into the connector's center pin.

Drill the necessary five holes to mount the connector in a brass sheet
that's available at hobby stores. Use .031" or .062" thick brass. Then
solder four 36" lengths of brass rod to the plate, fanning out
horizontally in four directions, to make ground radials for the antenna.
Bend each radial downward about 45 degrees.

You can mount the antenna by bolting some angle iron to the brass plate,
and drilling holes for a mast clamp in the vertical part of the angle
iron.

This antenna will be about 50 ohms.



Take a look at http://home.tbbs.net/~bhammond/FM_ANT/ to see how it's done.

The next type you could consider is the "j-pole". Again, this has an
unbalanced 50 ohm match (if constructed correctly), and is quite easy to
attach to a mast. http://www.hamuniverse.com/jpole.html is a handy
calculator for getting the length right.

A quick Google search for antenna types would definately help you out!



Slick (pasting from other posts)