Top Band, as 160 meters is called, presents a a challenge because the long wavelength leads to large antennas. One can always play tricks with loading to be able to use a physically shorter length of wire. There are many articles on compact 160 m antennas, but this is not one of them. Rather, I'm [...]
Tag: antennas
Modeling the J-Pole
When you first meet the J-Pole, you are forgiven if you don't quite grok how it is supposed to work. What is that 'J' for anyhow? When I have questions like this, I get out the 4NEC2 modeling program, and see what it says. Let's start out with the basic model -- the J consisting [...]
Performance of a 20 Meter Vertical Collinear Antenna
A couple of years ago I designed this antenna which had the good property of substantial low elevation gain and the model generated consistent and predictable 4NEC2 results. The wire that it would replace was already "pretty good" so it's taken two years to decide to build it. But I always had the feeling that [...]
Revisiting the GR5V and ZS6BKW Multi-band Antennas
When I first started playing ham radio, I ran across the GR5V antenna. It seemed that a lot of folks had them, and there seemed to be a fair bit of controversy about how good/bad they were. For whatever reason, I bypassed the design and went to an off-center-fed dipole instead. Now with more experience [...]
Variations on a Dipole
Here are the slides from a presentation I gave to the Valley Radio Club on August 4, 2017. Variations on a Dipole - Power Point Variations on a Dipole - PDF Antenna patterns are all about interference
Using NEC2 for Antenna Feed Design
When I jumped into the radio game with my new old Icom IC-745 transceiver, I really had no idea what I was doing. I knew I needed an antenna, so I went to a 1990 ARRL Handbook and found the "Loop Skywire" antenna which seemed like the one for me. The one resource I have [...]
Squash Practice 