On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 22:34:39 GMT, "larry d clark"
wrote:

hi

i've got a question about how wires to use when making
a fat conductor hf dipole(cage antenna)using wire equally
spaced around a circular form. ie target diameter is 8
inches, how many wires around the form, 4, 6, 8?

tnx

larry
kd5foy


Hi Larry,

An example design for one configuration may be found at:
http://home.comcast.net/~kb7qhc/ante.../Cage/cage.htm

As to your question about diameter and count of skirt wires, review:
http://www.qsl.net/kb7qhc/antenna/Discone/discone.htm
which, although relates to a discone, it serves to illustrate how the
"thickness" comes to bear on bandwidth.

Much of my other analysis simply suggests the more wires, the closer
approximation to the solid cylinder you are trying to build a skeleton
of. The question of how many is good enough should be evident that 16
certainly offers a good approximation, fewer, as revealed in my other
work brings a corresponding poorer approximation.

I've built physical models with up to 6 skirt wires, and although
useful, they did show resonances where the two links above reveal wide
banded behavior. One design was a 40M Discone, another a wideband
vertical dipole (hoping for 20-10M but probably closer to 15-10M).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC