wrote:
I plan to construct a 80/40/20/15 band multi-element dipole using
separate dipole wires for each band,

Side issue - you can get by using the 40m dipole for 15m.
40m dipoles and 15m dipoles interfere with each other
on 15m.
--
73, Cecil, w5dxp.com

So would a 80/40/20 be the thing to make? For whats it's worth, I
don't have a tuner right now.
I just want to cut each for the middle of the band for General phone,
and accept whatever bandwidth
I get.

Mike
KD7VRG

wrote:
So would a 80/40/20 be the thing to make? For whats it's worth, I
don't have a tuner right now.
I just want to cut each for the middle of the band for General phone,
and accept whatever bandwidth
I get.

That'll get you on those three bands and, as I mentioned, you can
probably get a reasonable impedance on 15 as well by fiddling the 40
meter antenna a bit. It won't be quite resonant on 40, but probably
close enough so your rig won't shut down.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

I use a fan type dipole. The wires are 66' 33' and 16' each side so double
that for total length. (befor I tuned them but thats close) with an air
wound choke at the feed point.
Fan is not exactly right for my antenna ...here is what I did...

I used pvc as a spacer between each wire, the first spacer is 12 inches
from the feed point (I wanted to get the wires apart from each other as
close to the feed point as possible to minimise interaction between them)

They are separated 12 inches apart over the whole length and hang under
each other, the longest being on top.
The top wire (the 66') is the one that has rope connected to it (via
insulator) to tie the ends of the dipole to whatever. in my case, It is an
inverted V so I used 2 20' poles to anchor the ends of the dipole to.

Since the ends of the 33 and the 16 footer were just hanging from the pvc
spacers attached to the 66 footer, I placed a weight at the ends of them to
keep it all from twisting up in high winds.

I also ran a line from the ends of the 33 footer down to my poles (a few
feet below where the ends of the 66 is tied off, for the same reason. ( I
find that weed eater string holds up really well for this and it is cheap)

I can use it on all bands from 10 to 80 meters and even right around 1.8
mhz on 160 with a cheap mfj tuner. (not sure why it will work at 1.8 mhz, I
never worked out the math)

I get great signal reports with it on my ts-440s (bare bone at 100 watts)
and as a general rule, if I can hear them, I can work them.
"Roy Lewallen" wrote in message
...
wrote:
So would a 80/40/20 be the thing to make? For whats it's worth, I
don't have a tuner right now.
I just want to cut each for the middle of the band for General phone,
and accept whatever bandwidth
I get.

That'll get you on those three bands and, as I mentioned, you can
probably get a reasonable impedance on 15 as well by fiddling the 40
meter antenna a bit. It won't be quite resonant on 40, but probably
close enough so your rig won't shut down.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

On Apr 19, 4:28 pm, Roy Lewallen wrote:
wrote:
So would a 80/40/20 be the thing to make? For whats it's worth, I
don't have a tuner right now.
I just want to cut each for the middle of the band for General phone,
and accept whatever bandwidth
I get.

That'll get you on those three bands and, as I mentioned, you can
probably get a reasonable impedance on 15 as well by fiddling the 40
meter antenna a bit. It won't be quite resonant on 40, but probably
close enough so your rig won't shut down.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL


He may notice a resonant point around 27-28-29 mhz also..
If you use a length a coax to feed, that will add a 1/4 wave
of length to the 80 legs, IE: about 60-70 feet, you can feed
the shorted coax end from the shack, and run it on 160m as
a vertical. When I use the 40 legs for 15m, I usually slap a
tuner inline as a line flattener to keep the radio happy, and
also increase the usable bandwidth. I usually don't trim the
40 antenna to get a match on 15, as I prefer the 40 legs to
be tuned where I cut it, which is usually in the middle of the
band, so I can work both phone and CW. Any cheap tuner
will easily give a good match for 15m, and the loss is going
to be low, being the match isn't bad to begin with.
In the old days with tube rigs, I never worried about tuning 15.
The rigs would tune it no problem, with no tuner required.
But the newer solid state radios are a bit pickier.. So I'll
put the tuner on. I have a 989c which is always inline, but
rarely actually used in most cases, except for the meter,
and in rare cases like 15m, 30m, and maybe 160m where
I want to tweak the match a bit.
MK