Nice job!
Comments below...

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:33:43 -0000, wrote:



Many thanks in advance!

Some thoughts on the subject...

If you are going to have an auto tuner, the antenna itself need not be
anything more than a piece of tubing.

I have a 34 ft piece of tubing with a SGC-237 and that tuned 160 (kind of
marginally) through 10 with no problem.

I added a relay controlled loading coil to switch in for 160/80 and now
it tunes 80 faster and 160 no problem.

If your main interest is the lower bands, just make the tubing as long as
you can get away with and let the auto tuner deal with it.

If it is next to the house, drive in as much ground rod as you can and use
a garden drip system along with some flowers or whatnot around the base of
it.

Whatever radials you can install are better than nothing.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Jim - You've given me new hope! How significant is the length and
depth of the radials? I probably have about 30 feet each way along the
side of the house. Are you suggesting a drip system around the ground
rod to improve the quality of the ground or for decorative reasons or
both?


The depth is deep enough to cover them with dirt.

Since they are buried, the absolute length isn't particularly important, just
put in as many as you can as long as you can in whatever directions you can.

The optimum case would be if they were under a lawn that is watered, otherwise
you just do what you can do.

From my point of view the drip system improves the ground while the XYL may
have a different viewpoint.

In my case, there is a small copper plate at the base of the antenna that
interconnects the ground rod with all the radial wires and is the ground
point for the tuner.


The electrical department at your local Home improvement store has
nice Bus bars for less than $10.

There is an old picture at http://mail.specsol.com/~jimp/ant_base.jpg

This one doesn't fold, but it would be no big deal to make that way.

The upside down trash can covers the auto tuner.

The low band loading coil is 1/4 inch copper tubing I happened to have wound
on a PVC mount and form. The switching relay is inside the coil form at the
bottom.


Splitting PVC Tee's and using hose clamps to mount them is a new trick
to me. Thanks!

The loading coil was trial and error adjusted for best SWR on 80 without
the tuner in the circuit.

The PVC pipe going into the ground has the antenna coax and control lines
for the relay and auto tuner in it.

The ratty looking braid from the ground rod going up into the trash can has
since been replaced with a #6 wire to the plate.