Antenna advice?
 

Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3 traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

Thanks
73s

Ron

Antenna advice?
 

" Ron" wrote in message
...
Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3
traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this
antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this
omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best
possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to
climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

A commercially built Yagi will usually work out of the box on a tower if you
measure carefully. A G5RV will work without much fiddling. The vertical
won't be worth anything on the tower. If you want to shunt feed the tower
and extend it another 17 ft. you could probably do well on 40 and 30 meters
in the wee hours of the morning. You should post in RRA Antenna newsgroup,
as there are experts who will have a lot of detail and time on their hands
and are fun to watch bicker.

Antenna advice?
 

JB wrote:
" Ron" wrote in message
...
Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3
traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this
antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this
omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best
possible.
Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to
climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

A commercially built Yagi will usually work out of the box on a tower if you
measure carefully. A G5RV will work without much fiddling. The vertical
won't be worth anything on the tower. If you want to shunt feed the tower
and extend it another 17 ft. you could probably do well on 40 and 30 meters
in the wee hours of the morning. You should post in RRA Antenna newsgroup,
as there are experts who will have a lot of detail and time on their hands
and are fun to watch bicker.

While putting a vertical on a tower seems a waste of a tower, verticals
DO work better on a tower if they are of the half wave length center
feed kind, such as the GAP Titan. I have mine on a short tower against
the house so that the base of the antenna is just above the roof line.
The antenna is on a tilt over mount so I can lower against the roof
whenever a tropical cyclone blows through here. The antenna works
better up 25 feet than ground mounted (and the kids can't trip over it
in the back yard).

Antenna advice?
 

A 4btv trap vertical or the like would be a different matter, requiring some
fiddling. A Yagi and (or) G5RV would require a minimum of fiddling. A
ladder line fed homemade G5RV in inverted vee would be the least expensive I
could think of. A used 3 element Yagis can be cleaned up and re-used
later..

The trap vertical that was mentioned would probably be a real hassle to
tune-up on the tower.

Antenna advice?
 

JB wrote:
A 4btv trap vertical or the like would be a different matter, requiring some
fiddling. A Yagi and (or) G5RV would require a minimum of fiddling. A
ladder line fed homemade G5RV in inverted vee would be the least expensive I
could think of. A used 3 element Yagis can be cleaned up and re-used
later..

The trap vertical that was mentioned would probably be a real hassle to
tune-up on the tower.

The GAP Titan can be dumped out of the box, assembled (use a tape
measure to get everything as per the manual) and put up without ANY
fooling around. You *MIGHT* have to make a minor adjustment to get the
80 and 40 meter bands right with the lowest SWR centered in the middle
of the band segment that you operate most, but mine came out perfect
using the factory directions.

Antenna advice?
 

"Kenneth Scharf" wrote in message
...
JB wrote:
A 4btv trap vertical or the like would be a different matter, requiring
some
fiddling. A Yagi and (or) G5RV would require a minimum of fiddling. A
ladder line fed homemade G5RV in inverted vee would be the least
expensive I
could think of. A used 3 element Yagis can be cleaned up and re-used
later..

The trap vertical that was mentioned would probably be a real hassle to
tune-up on the tower.

The GAP Titan can be dumped out of the box, assembled (use a tape
measure to get everything as per the manual) and put up without ANY
fooling around. You *MIGHT* have to make a minor adjustment to get the
80 and 40 meter bands right with the lowest SWR centered in the middle
of the band segment that you operate most, but mine came out perfect
using the factory directions.

You are telling me that the measurements are the same for tower mounting?

Antenna advice?
 

Thank you kindly for all the info

I have a lot of wire, can make any dipole, I have this 50ft tower that I
want to make a dipole and omni on the top.

The omni I want to be tunable so I can use it on other bands such as marine
band, to communicate with my boat

I have the manual tuner with reflected power measurements, so that is ok. I
want to know what is better, the dipole fed with coax or fed with ladder
line. The coax will run out the house, past the alumninum siding and be
taped to the tower, the ladder line I can run out the house, past the same
aluminum siding but can keep away from the tower about 4 feet until it
reaches the top where the dipole will split it and run the longest length I
can (I have the room) so that I can utilize all the bands with my tuner.

All suggestions and advice are excellent and I hope to hear and learn more

thanks

73







"JB" wrote in message
...

"Kenneth Scharf" wrote in message
...
JB wrote:
A 4btv trap vertical or the like would be a different matter, requiring
some
fiddling. A Yagi and (or) G5RV would require a minimum of fiddling. A
ladder line fed homemade G5RV in inverted vee would be the least
expensive I
could think of. A used 3 element Yagis can be cleaned up and re-used
later..

The trap vertical that was mentioned would probably be a real hassle to
tune-up on the tower.

The GAP Titan can be dumped out of the box, assembled (use a tape
measure to get everything as per the manual) and put up without ANY
fooling around. You *MIGHT* have to make a minor adjustment to get the
80 and 40 meter bands right with the lowest SWR centered in the middle
of the band segment that you operate most, but mine came out perfect
using the factory directions.

You are telling me that the measurements are the same for tower mounting?

Antenna advice?
 

A fan dipole has multiple dipoles with the same feed using spreader
insulators at the end of each shorter dipole. Full size 40 meter dipole
usually works on 15 with a tuner as it is not far from a 3/4 wave, and 80
might work on 10. I always wanted a full size cage dipole for 80 and 75.
This has several wires for broad band operation. HF Discone is another
interesting broadband antenna. You could use the tower as a support but
takes up some space.

Good luck

Antenna advice?
 

On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:15:23 -0400, " Ron"
wrote:


I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

I have a single tree in the middle at my site and I use it as the
feedpoint for an inverted-V antenna. Each segment is about 20 m long
from the feed point for 3.5 MHz operation. Also there are two 10 m
segments in different directions for 7 (and 21 MHz). There are some
ferrite toroids on the coax close to the feed point as a current
balun.

I also experimented with two 5 m segments from the same feed point
into slightly different directions for 14 MHz operation.
Unfortunately, it was quite hard to find the suitable length for these
segments using any SWR measurements and by using a noise bridge, I had
to extend the segments with nearly a meter, in order to get the SWR
down to operate without a tuner. Of course this varies from site to
site.

Paul OH3LWR

Antenna advice?
 

JB wrote:
"Kenneth Scharf" wrote in message
...
JB wrote:
A 4btv trap vertical or the like would be a different matter, requiring
some
fiddling. A Yagi and (or) G5RV would require a minimum of fiddling. A
ladder line fed homemade G5RV in inverted vee would be the least
expensive I
could think of. A used 3 element Yagis can be cleaned up and re-used
later..

The trap vertical that was mentioned would probably be a real hassle to
tune-up on the tower.

The GAP Titan can be dumped out of the box, assembled (use a tape
measure to get everything as per the manual) and put up without ANY
fooling around. You *MIGHT* have to make a minor adjustment to get the
80 and 40 meter bands right with the lowest SWR centered in the middle
of the band segment that you operate most, but mine came out perfect
using the factory directions.

You are telling me that the measurements are the same for tower mounting?

I'd have to dig up the instruction manual to see what they have to say
on that. However I do remember assembling it according to the
measurements given in the manual and the antenna worked fine mounted
with the bottom at eye level with me standing on roof. The antenna was
mounted on a mast strapped to the side of the house. I now have the
antenna mounted at the same height, but using the GAP tiltover mount
hardware attached to a short length of Rohn #25 tower against the side
of the house. I don't think the GAP Titan is very sensitive to height
above ground, at least as far as tuning is concerned. Angle of
radiation is probably another story....

Antenna advice?
 

Ron wrote:
Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3
traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

Thanks
73s

Ron

Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with the
ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Antenna advice?
 

Jack Pagel wrote:


Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with the
ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Tossing out another option....

I once used a "quarter-wave sloper" off of a grounded 50 foot tower.
Tower was used as a "ground plane". It did a very convincing job for DX
on 40 m and was somewhat directional.

Having multiple antennas is always a bonus. Add one of these to your
antenna switch!

-Bill WX4A

Antenna advice?
 

Bill M wrote:
Jack Pagel wrote:


Seeing you have a tuner, I would go with an 80 meter dipole fed with
the ladder-line. One antenna for all the bands 80 thru 10. FWIW

Tossing out another option....

I once used a "quarter-wave sloper" off of a grounded 50 foot tower.
Tower was used as a "ground plane". It did a very convincing job for DX
on 40 m and was somewhat directional.

Having multiple antennas is always a bonus. Add one of these to your
antenna switch!

-Bill WX4A

Or...skip the HF antennas and put up a converted 18" DirecTV dish and
get on 10 GHz. At ground level and 2W, I made a 180.5 mile QSO during
the 10 GHz and Up contest last month. Didn't even break a sweat ;)

Scott
N0EDV

Antenna advice?
 

In article , " Ron" wrote:

Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3 traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

• RON -- I would install a pulley on a short arm at the top of the tower
so that I could rig a halyard to raise and lower the middle of an
inverted-V antenna wire. One end of the wire is the feed point (fed
against gnd) and the unfed end has an insulator and a tie off to a point
at least 7' above ground. The feed point Z can be up to several
kilo-ohms, so an L-network is used to match the feed Z to 50-ohms. A
remote controlled L-network is a good way to go. When this antenna is a
half-wave, it's called a Hertz antenna and it acts like a plain-vanilla
halfwave inverted V dipole -- but with the advantage that it can be tuned
to work on any frequency for which the wire length is at least 0.2
wavelengths.
- notes - Hertz antennas have an advantage in the Winter since the
feedline is not up in the air. /// The most durable antenna wire is
braided phosphor bronze, #22 will easily carry 1500W. /// when viewed
from above the wire must be pretty much is a straight line and not fold
back on itself.
------Rich, AG6K

--
R.L. Measures. 805-386-3734, www.somis.org

Antenna advice?
 

On 28/06/10 13:23, •R. Measures. AG6K wrote:
In , " wrote:

Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3 traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

• RON -- I would install a pulley on a short arm at the top of the tower
so that I could rig a halyard to raise and lower the middle of an
inverted-V antenna wire. One end of the wire is the feed point (fed
against gnd) and the unfed end has an insulator and a tie off to a point
at least 7' above ground. The feed point Z can be up to several
kilo-ohms, so an L-network is used to match the feed Z to 50-ohms. A
remote controlled L-network is a good way to go. When this antenna is a
half-wave, it's called a Hertz antenna and it acts like a plain-vanilla
halfwave inverted V dipole -- but with the advantage that it can be tuned
to work on any frequency for which the wire length is at least 0.2
wavelengths.
- notes - Hertz antennas have an advantage in the Winter since the
feedline is not up in the air. /// The most durable antenna wire is
braided phosphor bronze, #22 will easily carry 1500W. /// when viewed
from above the wire must be pretty much is a straight line and not fold
back on itself.
------Rich, AG6K
===================
Tnx Rich for the above useful advice, which I have filed.

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

Antenna advice?
 

In article , highlandham
wrote:

On 28/06/10 13:23, •R. Measures. AG6K wrote:
In , "
wrote:

Hi

I have a 50 ft tower just ready to throw up something to operate.

Cost is the problem but I have a lot of parts to build. I want to put up a
dipole (I have a manual all band tuner) and my question is should feed it
with ladder line or feed it with coax and then run each leg about 68 ft .

Second idea is I have an old aluminum omni antenna that used to have 3 traps
within it, however at that height it will come down quickly as this antenna
is meant to be on the ground (no ground planes) so I want to make this omni
as long as practically possible and tune it to utilize it as best possible.

Any suggestions? This is really all I have to work with. Only want to climb
this thing a couple times and hope its good for the winter.

• RON -- I would install a pulley on a short arm at the top of the tower
so that I could rig a halyard to raise and lower the middle of an
inverted-V antenna wire. One end of the wire is the feed point (fed
against gnd) and the unfed end has an insulator and a tie off to a point
at least 7' above ground. The feed point Z can be up to several
kilo-ohms, so an L-network is used to match the feed Z to 50-ohms. A
remote controlled L-network is a good way to go. When this antenna is a
half-wave, it's called a Hertz antenna and it acts like a plain-vanilla
halfwave inverted V dipole -- but with the advantage that it can be tuned
to work on any frequency for which the wire length is at least 0.2
wavelengths.
- notes - Hertz antennas have an advantage in the Winter since the
feedline is not up in the air. /// The most durable antenna wire is
braided phosphor bronze, #22 will easily carry 1500W. /// when viewed
from above the wire must be pretty much is a straight line and not fold
back on itself.
------Rich, AG6K
===================
Tnx Rich for the above useful advice, which I have filed.

• ur welcome Ron

Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH

--
Richard L. Measures. 805-386-3734,AG6K, www.somis.org