Need help with first HF antenna
 

Finally upgraded to General this winter, and found a Ten-Tec Triton IV
(my first HF rig) and I need some antenna help.

I need something simple that will give decent performance, and keep XYL
happy.

Some ideas I've come across:

1. A random loop strung in a few trees, fed with ladder line to ground
level, with a balun and lightning arrestor, into buried coax 50' or so
to the house and into the shack. This setup is the most aesthetically
pleasing, and coax will be easy to run in the house. How much will the
transition to coax hurt me here? Would I need a 1:1 or 4:1 balun? Some
other ratio?

2. Same random loop, fed with ladder line all the way into the shack.
Would probably give better performance, but running the ladder line in
the house will be more difficult, and the XYL is less likely to approve
of a wire in the air vs buried.

3. A dipole in one of the above configurations.

4. A random long wire strung around the yard, end-fed with coax and a balun.

I will be using an antenna tuner in the shack with any of these
configurations, and will be running a max of 100W for the foreseeable
future. How much do I have to worry about the wire touching the trees
at these power levels?

Thanks for any help you can give - I know these questions have probably
been asked a million times before :)

--
Keith

Need help with first HF antenna
 

Keith,
Nothing wrong with any of your suggestions, but why not start out
very simple, as in a dipole. It will at the very least give you
something to make comparisons against. When your better half sort of
gets used to the idea of wire hanging in the air, then you can make
changes. You might even ask her what color of wire she thinks would
be 'best'. No, it won't make any difference except that it shows that
you respect her opinion... sort of. (If she reads that last part, you
are up that proverbial creek!)
- 'Doc

Need help with first HF antenna
 

Hi OM,

Look at these articles, some can be useful.
http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/menu-qsl.htm

Thierry
ON4SKY, LX4SKY

"Keith" a écrit dans le message de
...
Finally upgraded to General this winter, and found a Ten-Tec Triton IV (my
first HF rig) and I need some antenna help.

I need something simple that will give decent performance, and keep XYL
happy.

Some ideas I've come across:

1. A random loop strung in a few trees, fed with ladder line to ground
level, with a balun and lightning arrestor, into buried coax 50' or so to
the house and into the shack. This setup is the most aesthetically
pleasing, and coax will be easy to run in the house. How much will the
transition to coax hurt me here? Would I need a 1:1 or 4:1 balun? Some
other ratio?

2. Same random loop, fed with ladder line all the way into the shack.
Would probably give better performance, but running the ladder line in the
house will be more difficult, and the XYL is less likely to approve of a
wire in the air vs buried.

3. A dipole in one of the above configurations.

4. A random long wire strung around the yard, end-fed with coax and a
balun.

I will be using an antenna tuner in the shack with any of these
configurations, and will be running a max of 100W for the foreseeable
future. How much do I have to worry about the wire touching the trees at
these power levels?

Thanks for any help you can give - I know these questions have probably
been asked a million times before :)

--
Keith

Need help with first HF antenna
 

Keith, congrats on your upgrade!!

The old saying is, any antenna is better that no antenna, so to get going
why not build a quick starter-upper that will work on most all the bands.
While many might call the "G5RV Dipole" as a poor antenna, it actually works
quite well and is easy to make. There are a number of sites on the Internet
to guide you, but all that is necessary is 102' end to end dipole fed with
31 feet of balanced line in the center. If you can tune it at that point
great, but you can also add 50 coax at the end of the 31 feet into the
shack. Make sure you get it up in the air as high as you can and keep it a
flat top installation if at all possible. It will also work with drooping
ends too, but keep the end high.

On 20 Meters the antenna is a 3/2 wave dipole, and it has gain of 3db and
radiates off the end of the wires. Due to the present conditions of the
solar cycle, try to install it in a direction that would work well 20 as it
will be your first band to work "long haul" contacts. You will find 40 and
80 to work too.

BEST REGARDS,
Steve K2CX