Denny wrote:
Jeez RIchard, did we quaff a few too many pints of viper venom last
night? The guy asked for advice and got fanged...

I know how to fang back. Ask Cecil if I'm always a nice guy.

Ignore Richard, Brian, his acerbic disembowling was aimed at the
purveyors of the antennas, not you...

Understood.

However, having said that Richard is right as usual.. Forget those
guys...
Get some wire - Romex or THHN from Home Depot will work nicely... Or
any other source of #18 to #14 wire you can come up with...

Cut it to a half wave via formula:
983/F(mc) for 1 wave, then divide by 2 - exact length doesn't matter
because the tank circuit
will tune the antenna, just about no matter what..

Yup. Been there done all that many times.

Grab the nearest source of thin plastic bottle you can find that is
roughly 2" - 3" diameter...
- that bottle of designer water your sweetie carries around will work
just fine, just don't fess up when she asks if you have seen it...

.. . . I'm an unattached old hermit . . no broad in her right mind would
live here with me.

And if you leave the water inside, you can tell the guys on the local
repeater, "Can you hear me now?" oops, wrong commercial
you can tell them that you are running so much power you had to water
cool the coils! -

I like it!

Wind about 6 or 7 turns of bare wire on the bottle, spaced about a
wire diameter apart...
Get a variable cap, about 60 to 100 uuF will do nicely...

Been collecting variable caps for years for this purpose.

Wire this
across the coil as a parallel tuned circuit...
Hook the braid of your coax to the bottom of the tank... The coax
center will have an alligator clip on it... The feed end of the antenna
goes to the top of the tank circuit obviously...
Tap the coil 1.5 to 2 turns up from the bottom with the alligator clip,
run low power, swing the cap and look for a dip (that is a 'dip' on the
SWR meter, not your fishing buddies)
Didn't dip did it? Probably because your tank didn't tune exactly to
the band you are on... Add or subtract turns to the tank coil until you
do see meter movement that says you are getting close... Then adjust
your tap point for that magic 1:1...

Classic all the way and very much in the direction I plan to go. A few
points though. I have an MFJ-259B analyzer which makes antenna tuning a
piece of cake. By the time I get around to building any tuners I'll
also have a grid dip meter which will take care of getting the tank
circuit in-band on the bench instead of having to do it out in the
weeds. And I'll probably see if I can wind coils like B&W does just
because I've always admired them and it would be a challenge.

"One to one, one too one, we don't have no fun until it's one to
one"...

Whoever invented SWR worship needs to be shot.

************************************************** ***************************************
A short break for Bruno to to give me my medicine and adjust my
restraints...
Now I feel better!
************************************************** ******************************************


Now the counterpoise... A ground rod will work after a fashion - so
will strychnine, but that is another story...

Back when I was furiously chasing an early five band DXCC from another
location here in town I had an end-fed 130 foot inverted L and one
ground rod and no radials. Used the antenna on 80 & 40 and didn't have
much competition in the pileups with 500W. I've been attributing the
success of that antenna to ground conditions. Dark, heavy Pennsylvania
loam. This location should be even better in this respect because it's
the same soil but it's damper. I have to cut down a lot of bamboo to
make room around the tree for the two antennas. There's a message in
that.

Better is radials, as many as you can put down - length does not
matter! Drop a wire from the bottom of your tank to the radials
center..

Oops: Hold on right there. I live on a rather strange patch of ground.
The property is only 65' x 45' (roughly) and it's overpopulated by five
huge old hardwood trees all of them well over 75' tall, and one small
cedar cabin. Radial farms are out, some radials, ground rods and
voltage-fed half wave verticals are in.

. . . . The ground rod does nothing
otherwise, and may actually harm your antenna pattern if connected
directly to the tank...
(I know, I know, that's not what they taught you in Sunday School...
It's a cold, cruel world out there.)

I don't even start to understand this one.

Now the common mode choke... Well, you can order a premade choke from
WX0B (great folks, solid products, but definitely not cheap)
Or you can order a 0.5" X 4" iron powder rod from the usual suspects,
then get Formvar magnet wire and wind 6 bifilar turns on it... Then
solder this whole gaschmazz between the tank and the coax... It will
work nicely...

Never read about that one before except as they apply to filament
chokes, looks like a good alternative to a pile of beads.

Or, you can stop reading all the Hennie Pennies who run around clucking
that the sky is falling down, wind 6 turns of your coax on a plastic
pail in about 90 seconds, and go for a beer

Scotch.

because you are done - and
you have the best choke that money can buy...

BTW, you only have to put up one antenna for 20 because with a bit of
experimenting and a jumper or two, you can find the magic coil taps for
15 meters, also...

'Druther be able to twist a switch inside the nice warm house to change
bands than go outside and futz with coil taps in the snow.

OK, Bruno says I will take a nap NOW, before I cause any more problems
on here....

Entertainement is where one finds it. Or creates it.

denny / k8do

Thanx,

Brian w3rv