Jack,
'AES' has copperweld, 18 ga., 250 feet, about $18.00. No
idea where to find stainless steel wire, don't need it...
'Doc

Jack Twilley wrote:
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"Mike" == Mike Coslo writes:


[... David mentioned B&W antennas ...]

Doc David, The bottom line is that it's a terrible 'amateur' antenna
Doc for the price. 'Doc

Jack Out of curiosity, what other antenna provides a better
Jack cost-benefit ratio while maintaining the same constraints with
Jack respect to power, size, and construction?

Mike Hmmm, How about an Isotron? 8^) Man, there is a small antenna!

They're too spooky for me. I don't understand how they work.

No majik there, they work about as well as you would expect an antenna
that size to work. That is, not very well. They look cool though!



Mike If you take the bands that the B&W performs adequately on, the
Mike size ratio between it an a halfwave dipole isn't quite so
Mike good. I suppose the FD that is most comparable to my antenna is
Mike the BWD 90. It's 90 feet, as we might figure. My dipole is 96
Mike feet.

I guess it depends on what you consider "adequate". If your 96-ft
dipole provides comparable SWR matches across all the bands the B&W
antennas allegedly provide, that'd be pretty impressive. Like the
other poster, I noticed that there were no gain figures in the B&W
literature, and that does make me suspicious.

Right, the two antennas are not quite comparable. I have to use a tuner
on my antenna. But that really isn't a handicap IMO. I contest with my
rig, and although I have to be careful on 80 meters, I can change bands
and set the knobs to their proper positions in just a couple seconds.


Mike My dipole cost less than 30 dollars to make. If you count the
Mike tuner, I still spent less money.

Sure, so did I. And my antenna was messed up the following spring,
due to stretched wire, water leaking into critical bits, and more. If
you spent less than thirty dollars and used copperweld or stainless
steel, then I'd like to know what trucks that wire falls off so I can
chase them around town.

Never used copperweld, except for twinlead. You can get it pretty
easily though.

The trick with regular copper is to pre-stretch it. You get a helper or
two on each end, and give a good steady pull to stretch it.

And yeah, Mother Nature can be a b***h sometimes. My dipole has been up
over 2 years now, and is still surviving. That is probably as much luck
as my construction genius! 8^) I'll be taking it down for some
modifications - I'm going to lengthen it so I can tune 80 meters better,
so I'll see soon how the plastic parts held up.

I think what I am driving at here is that everything comes at a price,
some monetary, some functional. Antennas like the B&W FD are great if
you want minimal fuss. That comes at a price in performance though. I
went real cheap. The price I pay is using a tuner. That doesn't bother
me at all - I'm an inveterate knob twiddler!

- Mike KB3EIA -

Jack Twilley wrote in message ...

Out of curiosity, what other antenna provides a better cost-benefit
ratio while maintaining the same constraints with respect to power,
size, and construction?

A well made G5RV, for one. A well-made W3DZZ trap dipole, for another.
W5DXP's "linear tuner" dipole, for a third. Or the classic
dipole-with-openline-and-a-real-balanced-tuner for a fourth. All are
much more efficient than a T2FD of the same size.

The B&W/T2FD is discussed in detail on W4RNL's excellent site (which
see). In short, its efficiency is quite low on the lower bands and
gets to be almost as good as a halfwave dipole on the upper bands.
Their one and only advantage is low SWR over the frequency range.

73 de Jim, N2EY

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"N2EY" == N2EY writes:

N2EY Jack Twilley wrote in message
N2EY ...
Out of curiosity, what other antenna provides a better
cost-benefit ratio while maintaining the same constraints with
respect to power, size, and construction?

N2EY A well made G5RV, for one. A well-made W3DZZ trap dipole, for
N2EY another. W5DXP's "linear tuner" dipole, for a third. Or the
N2EY classic dipole-with-openline-and-a-real-balanced-tuner for a
N2EY fourth. All are much more efficient than a T2FD of the same
N2EY size.

The only one of those I haven't seen is the "linear tuner" dipole.

N2EY The B&W/T2FD is discussed in detail on W4RNL's excellent site
N2EY (which see). In short, its efficiency is quite low on the lower
N2EY bands and gets to be almost as good as a halfwave dipole on the
N2EY upper bands. Their one and only advantage is low SWR over the
N2EY frequency range.

I've looked, but the T2FD that's discussed isn't the one I'd be
buying, and I'm not sure if that matters.

N2EY 73 de Jim, N2EY

Jack.
- --
Jack Twilley
jmt at twilley dot org
http colon slash slash www dot twilley dot org slash tilde jmt slash
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Jack Twilley wrote:
The only one of those I haven't seen is the "linear tuner" dipole.

It's described at: http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/notuner.htm



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Jack Twilley wrote in message ...
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"N2EY" == N2EY writes:

N2EY Jack Twilley wrote in message
N2EY ...
Out of curiosity, what other antenna provides a better
cost-benefit ratio while maintaining the same constraints with
respect to power, size, and construction?

N2EY A well made G5RV, for one. A well-made W3DZZ trap dipole, for
N2EY another. W5DXP's "linear tuner" dipole, for a third. Or the
N2EY classic dipole-with-openline-and-a-real-balanced-tuner for a
N2EY fourth. All are much more efficient than a T2FD of the same
N2EY size.

The only one of those I haven't seen is the "linear tuner" dipole.

http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp/notuner.htm

N2EY The B&W/T2FD is discussed in detail on W4RNL's excellent site
N2EY (which see). In short, its efficiency is quite low on the lower
N2EY bands and gets to be almost as good as a halfwave dipole on the
N2EY upper bands. Their one and only advantage is low SWR over the
N2EY frequency range.

I've looked, but the T2FD that's discussed isn't the one I'd be
buying, and I'm not sure if that matters.

Which one would you be buying and how is it different? Most of the
data in the W4RNL site is for a 90' T2FD. When you look at the gain
curves, remember that they're in dBi. A simple halfwave dipole has
about 2.2 dBi gain.

The T2FD isn't a new invention - it was in QST about 1948 as a
*receiving* antenna, and that wasn't the first article on it by any
means. Government/military folks wanted a receiving antenna that was
essentially omnidirectional and would give a decent match to balanced
line over the HF frequency range - possibly feeding several receivers
via an active receive coupler. Low efficiency below 8 or 10 MHz was no
big deal because the receivers had lots of gain, and atmospheric noise
dominates in that part of the spectrum even with a poor antenna.

Transmitting is another issue.

If you want to spend the money for a T2FD, enjoy. But in the same
space (T2FDs are not small!) and for the same or less money you could
have a much more efficient transmitting antenna.

73 de Jim, N2EY

They conform to the manufacturer's specifications.

But the manufacturer's specifications do not mention, at least in numerical
terms, the most important parameter - antenna GAIN.

The omission can mean only one thing - very poor gain at the lower
frequencies.

But that is easily corrected by pumping in 10 Kwatts.

Jim Higgins wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2004 21:13:58 GMT, in
, R. David Steele
/OMEGA wrote:


http://www.bwantennas.com/

The military is using these antennas because of ALE (automatic
linking) and NVIS. I gather that while they are very broad
banded, they have less the best gain?

Any feed back?


I tend to compare the claims for any antenna to the
characteristics of a dummy load and then remember the principle
of reciprocity.

So for the BW dipole let's see. It's really quiet, esp on the
lower frequencies. It's really broad banded. It's not for me.


Dummy loads are pretty quiet too aren't they? ;^)

- Mike KB3EIA -

Jim Higgins wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2004 21:13:58 GMT, in
, R. David Steele
/OMEGA wrote:


http://www.bwantennas.com/

The military is using these antennas because of ALE (automatic
linking) and NVIS. I gather that while they are very broad
banded, they have less the best gain?

Any feed back?


I tend to compare the claims for any antenna to the
characteristics of a dummy load and then remember the principle
of reciprocity.

So for the BW dipole let's see. It's really quiet, esp on the
lower frequencies. It's really broad banded. It's not for me.


Doh! I guess that was your point!

- Mike KB3EIA -

On Sun, 16 May 2004 21:13:58 GMT, R. David Steele
/OMEGA wrote:

http://www.bwantennas.com/

The military is using these antennas because of ALE (automatic
linking) and NVIS. I gather that while they are very broad
banded, they have less the best gain?

Any feed back?

I have used the BWD-90 for 2 months now, and love it.
I live on a city lot, and this antenna fits and performs better than
any other antenna I have tried. I've tried shortened 75m dipoles,
40 meter delta loops, and all kinds of slopers. all narrow banded and
loaded with city noise. The antenna has made the hobby fun for me
again. It is frequency agile, and has a great signal to noise ratio.
At 80 meters the antenna is only down 1 db from a standard dipole.
At 40 meters it even, there is 1db gain at 20 meters, and 3db at 10m.
(B & W,s numbers, not mine).
The botton line is if you live in the sticks with all kinds of space,
and no noise, you don't need a folded terminated dipole.
you can run wire to the cows come home,
but it's sure nice in the city.
Curt