RadioBanter - View Single Post - Windom antennas

John Passaneau · March 5th 07, 03:18 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna

wrote in
oups.com:

On Mar 4, 4:07 pm, Owen Duffy wrote:
According to my ARRL Antenna Handbook, the Windom Antenna was
described by Loren Windom in QST in 1929.

I can't stand windoms myself... A poor design overall.. Bout par for
1929
technology..
I compared a dipole to one of those "carolina windoms" one time using
a
A/B switch.. It was ugly.. The dipole thrashed it. The windom setup
had
way too much loss. Mostly in the perverted mess of a feedline/tuner I
suspect.
But.... It doesn't bother me if anyone else wants to use them. IE:
field day,
etc. I like having an unfair advantage... All those windoms strung
across
the country on field day just help me get a better score...
Ughhhmm, maybe I should keep my mouth shut...
Yea.. Forget what I said. The windoms are great antennas.
A very efficient antenna system, and everyone should use one. If you
don't
use a windom at field day, you ain't really living.. Those funky fed
tuner/choke
G5RV's also have a special place in my heart.
Greatest antenna I've ever used.. :/ Grrrrr... I still remember
losing about
3 mm of tooth length due to excessive grinding when using a "funky
fed" G5RV
on 80m at field day a few years ago..
MK

We have used OFC dipoles here for a few years at field day. They fill a
very specific set of needs for us. 1) They are simple to put up
2) The feed line coming from one end of the dipole is shorter than from
center feed dipoles in our setup. 3) OFC dipoles offer an impedance at
the end of the coax that is within the range of the tuners built into
our radios on the bands that are important to field day. This simplifies
our setup and operation. 4) They work as well as an antenna of that
physical length on any one frequency would no mater how it’s feed.

The radiation pattern from an OFC is set by the length of the wire not
where RF is feed in/out of the antenna. In our setup open wire line and
tuners would be a pain in the butt, and an operational inconvenience
that gains us nothing. Fan dipoles or separate dipoles are hard to setup
and or tune and would perform no better for us. The antennas we use were
built by myself and use a 4:1 current balun which minimize feed line
radiation. On 80/40/20m we can easily match the antenna with the built
in tuners so the SWR must be under 3:1. OFC dipoles don’t work well on
15m but with the current sun spot cycle not a problem. We see no
indication of common mode current problems, so we don’t worry about it,
we just operate and have fun.

John W3JXP