On Feb 2, 11:14 am, Joaquin Tall
wrote:
Hello All,

I have just gotten my tech license and am eager to get my station up and
running. I am starting on a shoestring; currently, I have no equipment
whatsoever and don't know what I should buy just yet. In absence of a
rig, I am now studying to pass my General license exam next month.

I am very interested in building my own HF/VHF/UHF antennas. I've seen
the ARRL books, but I was hoping that you good folks might have some
favorite websites, book titles or magazine issues [old or new] that
you'd be willing to pass along that could get me started.

Many thanks for taking the time to respond!

After you thrash your way through the ARRL Antenna book (which
includes a CD with the entire searchable text.. very handy, as well as
some useful planning programs like HFTA)...

Another book that is quite useful are ON4UN's Low Band DXing... yes,
the focus is on 40m and down, but there's lots of good construction
info, as well as matching networks, etc.

And, finally, I think everyone who's seriously fooling with antennas
should get a copy of J. Kraus, "Antennas". This is a standard
textbook on the subject, and I find it much more accessible than, say,
Balanis, although the theoreticians tend to prefer Balanis, because of
the rigor.

Finally, if you need math stuff for antennas.. Sophocles Orfanidis at
Rutgers has an online electromagnetics and antennas textbook that I
find very handy (because it's online, and you can download the pdfs
and carry it with you on your laptop)... http://www.ece.rutgers.edu/
~orfanidi/ewa/ Orfanidis also has a bunch of very useful Matlab (or
Octave) routines as an appendix to the book.


Jim, W6RMK