What's Your Favorite Homebrew Antenna Recipe?

Johnny

Johnny

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Getting into Amateur Radio, my main interest is antenna voodoo. I've been doing a lot of online searching, to the point that everything is becoming a blur.

In an effort to get my feet wet and maybe learn a thing or two along the way, I've built a ground plane antenna for 2m and another for 70cm with tig filler rod and SO-239 chassis mounts. I haven't done any testing at a significant enough height to judge them yet.

I have yet to procure an hf transceiver so an SDR is all I have to play around with at the moment. I made a 10m (math stuff for 28.4mHz) horizontal dipole with an air wound choke balun out of coax. The math/measurements check out but the only thing I hear on 10m seems to be ft8 and some cw in the lower part of the band. I get near perfect CB reception with it though.
The inverted V with banana to bnc that I built for 28.4 picks up 27.025 incredibly well. Its 25' up on a fiberglass pole at about 65°. At least I've had Motormouth Maul out of California to entertain me.😏

I also put together a 4:1 and a 1:1 balun/unun. The both ohm out right on the money with the right resistor test stack.

Am I wasting my time by doing this without an antenna analyzer and an hf rig and just the SDR?


So, beyond all that, have ya got any links, recipes or favorite flavors?
 
80 meter loop in a delta config has been my favorite. Been a number of years since I tossed one together, off the top of my head: 273’ of wire and a 4:1 balun, 3 insulators, and pull it up into the air keeping the sides as even as I can.

I’ve used a G5RV in an inverted v config for a number of years as well.


Keep in mind “the math”(IIRC) is for an antenna in free space. Things surrounding your antenna (trees, buildings, metal objects, distance from ground etc, will have an effect on tuning. Always build them a tick longer than the math suggests, easier to trim than to add wire.

Your never wasting your time if your learning.

ETA, I use google earth to play with antenna placement. Draw my antennas out using the measure tool and see what trees would be best for anchors. Did this at Battery Oaks a few years ago with my 80m loop, worked perfectly.
 
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not sure I have one favorite

the Moxon is high on that list (thanks BP)

good and free sim software

System Modeling - True Ladder Line and Wire Antennas

www.trueladderline.com www.trueladderline.com

best, easiest, all-band 100 watt class HF antenna is a ladder-fed doublet at 35' - 40' as long as you can reasonably make it ...

... then remotely matched with any of the several available autotuners that work remote via a phantom DC on the coax, like MFJ-926B or LDG-RT100

not sure why these are not basically everywhere, you cannot see it unless you walk into it, so HOA issues are not relevant

all you need are 3 trees with branches in the right place

not costly, not hard to put up, and if done right, they don't come down
 
DRFury said:
Sounds like your 10m needs to be a little shorter to move it out of 11m and into a better part of the 10m band.
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Yes, for sure. I'm kind of holding off for a bit until I order an HF, as hp468 said below, easier to trim than add. My mistake was using good material to construct it, I think I'll toss one together out of scrap crap and trim away until I trim too much. At least that's one way to learn.

hp468 said:
80 meter loop in a delta config has been my favorite. Been a number of years since I tossed one together, off the top of my head: 273’ of wire and a 4:1 balun, 3 insulators, and pull it up into the air keeping the sides as even as I can.

I’ve used a G5RV in an inverted v config for a number of years as well.


Keep in mind “the math”(IIRC) is for an antenna in free space. Things surrounding your antenna (trees, buildings, metal objects, distance from ground etc, will have an effect on tuning. Always build them a tick longer than the math suggests, easier to trim than to add wire.

Your never wasting your time if your learning.

ETA, I use google earth to play with antenna placement. Draw my antennas out using the measure tool and see what trees would be best for anchors. Did this at Battery Oaks a few years ago with my 80m loop, worked perfectly.
Click to expand...

I remember you mentioning the 80-meter loop, I'm going to move that up to the top of the list. The G5RV does look intriguing, certainly going on the list.
As far as free space and things surrounding, yes, copy, copy. Some of it just is what it is. I have been paying attention to height off the ground, but lazily only insofar as what someone's recipe or utube video suggests.
Google Earth is a cool idea, I hadn't considered that, I have been using https://www.scadacore.com/tools/rf-path/rf-line-of-sight/ for my 2m/70cm mast builds. It's a great tool if by chance you haven't seen it.

Button Pusher said:
The Moxon antenna 2M.


View attachment 715597

Half square antenna 2M.


Click to expand...


Nice! Thank you. The Moxon is now on my "for further research list."

Edit to add, K8MRD is one of the few that doesn't annoy the crap out of me. I really enjoy his content. That 10m dipole vid was actually what I used as a reference for the one I built.


mostly22lately said:
not sure I have one favorite

the Moxon is high on that list (thanks BP)

good and free sim software

System Modeling - True Ladder Line and Wire Antennas

www.trueladderline.com www.trueladderline.com

best, easiest, all-band 100 watt class HF antenna is a ladder-fed doublet at 35' - 40' as long as you can reasonably make it ...

... then remotely matched with any of the several available autotuners that work remote via a phantom DC on the coax, like MFJ-926B or LDG-RT100

not sure why these are not basically everywhere, you cannot see it unless you walk into it, so HOA issues are not relevant

all you need are 3 trees with branches in the right place

not costly, not hard to put up, and if done right, they don't come down
Click to expand...

That's wild. Only had a quick peek, the geek in me loves it, but my wallet isn't anywhere near ready for the full meal deal on that one. Definitely on the "for further research list."
 
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With a 10M Dipole you should not need a Balun. If you like to fool around with antennas, get yourself a Nano VNA. The are excellent for the money. Get a rig expert, or any of the other name brand analyzers if you want to spend a few more bucks. You will learn an awful lot in a short period of time once you figure out how to run the tool.

To directly answer your question, my current favorite is an off center fed dipole 80M-10M that is up about 80 feet. I just talked to Malawi Africa on 10M with 100 watts with it. 10M is pretty good at the moment. You should be hearing lots of activity on there.

Joe
 
JoeR said:
With a 10M Dipole you should not need a Balun.
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Understood. I've built an assortment for future projects, mostly of the end-fed verity.

JoeR said:
If you like to fool around with antennas, get yourself a Nano VNA. The are excellent for the money. Get a rig expert, or any of the other name brand analyzers if you want to spend a few more bucks. You will learn an awful lot in a short period of time once you figure out how to run the tool.
Click to expand...

On my shopping list right after the IC-7300
JoeR said:
To directly answer your question, my current favorite is an off center fed dipole 80M-10M that is up about 80 feet. I just talked to Malawi Africa on 10M with 100 watts with it. 10M is pretty good at the moment. You should be hearing lots of activity on there.

Joe
Click to expand...
Sweet, thank you.
 
That 7300 is a GREAT radio for the money. I bet it has the best transmitter for the money. I had my mind set to buy that radio when I went into Ham Radio Outlet in Atlanta. After getting to play with a new different radios I changed my mind and waked out with a Yaesu FTDX10. I would have been good with either one.
You'll have good fun on HF.
Joe
 
JoeR said:
That 7300 is a GREAT radio for the money. I bet it has the best transmitter for the money. I had my mind set to buy that radio when I went into Ham Radio Outlet in Atlanta. After getting to play with a new different radios I changed my mind and waked out with a Yaesu FTDX10. I would have been good with either one.
You'll have good fun on HF.
Joe
Click to expand...

I was planning on waiting until after New Years to decide on what to get and pull the trigger on it. Haven't gotten involved in any of the local clubs yet, another reason to hold off and see if any deals from members pop up. But with the rebate going on until 12/31 and recommendations from you and quite a few others I think I'm just going to go for it now.
I am very much looking forward to learning hf.
 
Balundesigns.com I built an OCF dipole that worked great up to 80m. A friend helped me put it up and put a “Rig Analyzer“ on it which showed it performing well in all bands. I stupidly paid for a 3kw balun when my output was 100w max. It stayed with the house when I sold it as the agreement said all antennas stay. Well, ok. Good luck.
 
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My favorite DIY UHF/VHF antenna has been a copper tube J-Pole. It was fun to make and tune. It performed very well. Not for hilly terrain though. I also enjoyed making "poor man's" Yagi's out of copper wire and PVC or wood. They performed surprisingly well for what they are.
For HF I have used commercially produced G5RV and Carolina Windom. The Carolina Windom was definitely better overall, but requires height. The most fun has been DIY end-fed half-waves set in inverted-V or NVIS configurations. I made a contact into middle TN on about 20watts and a DIY 1/2wave end-fed built for 40m, hung on an invertd V
 
For hf I’m partial to a horizontal full wave loop myself. Build it for as low a band as you can. Feed it with 450ohm ladder line and run that into an old school manual wide range antenna tuner, no coax. Or you can run a “short” jumper from the 4:1 balun to a wide range auto tuner. You can work any band from the one you cut the antenna for up to 10m. It won’t be optimal on the higher bands but works decent. The loop can be in a square or triangle configuration. A dipole cut for the lowest band you want to use, fed the same way as the loop also works pretty good Also I’ll say this…. For optimal performance you need an antenna for each band you want to work. That is for optimal performance, multiband antennas work but all suffer loss in performance on all but the band they are cut for. Just because it works doesn’t mean it’s working good. A fan dipole with elements for each band is a superb multiband antenna as it is an antenna for each band you make an element for. I reserve an endfed halfwave and endfed random wire for portable use or if I need an extra antenna real fast. If all you run is an endfed you are missing out. As someone else mentioned balun designs has a ton of great parts and knowlage on their site. I’ll take a homebrew antenna over a commercial almost every time. A kilometer roll of field phone wire is dirt cheap, tough as nails, and will make you antennas until you give it up or die. Small PVC pipe makes great center insulators and end insulators and is cheap. You can build your own antennas for pennies on the dollar and have something you designed and built and it will be just as good.
 
Also if you are just listening,you can just run a single wire off the center pin of the coax connection on the sdr. Run that wire out as far and as high as you can. Google shortwave receive antennas for more on that.
 
I built a moxon for 6m and it did pretty good for the compact size. I upgraded to a 5el yagi and it blew it out of the water performance wise, but is the size of my 4door wrangler. I think a moxon is a fine idea for a portable directional antenna.
 
I took an inch off of the inverted-V and raised it up to 35' hits square on 28.400 now. Hearing a guy in New Brunswick Canada talking to Guadalupe Island in the Caribbean even though I'm broadside E/W. Pretty freaking cool.
Feeling like an idiot now though for not doing it sooner. Picking up contesting like crazy, reminds me of the press shouting questions at a politician . Lots of antenna talk with the contesting, pretty neat.
So, It's not perfect by any means but it'll get my head out of my ass and actually start learning.
 
35’ on a 10m dipole wether flat or a v is good. Higher is better but generally half a wavelength above ground is good enough to get the correct radiation pattern. On a dipole it’s pretty much Omni directional, especially if it’s in an inverted v.
 
JW1987 said:
On a dipole it’s pretty much Omni directional, especially if it’s in an inverted v.
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I have just learned that, by accident. :) I swear I had read a couple of places that an inverted V was broadside directional. Another lesson or 2 learned here with that, it all comes down to how it actually performs for me, not how it should, could or would for YouTube, a calculator or in some other dude's yard.
 
Johnny said:
I have just learned that, by accident. :) I swear I had read a couple of places that an inverted V was broadside directional. Another lesson or 2 learned here with that, it all comes down to how it actually performs for me, not how it should, could or would for YouTube, a calculator or in some other dude's yard.
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That's been the really fun part for me. I know what I think it's gonna do, but you have to hang it and find out.
I know my 20M dipole is pretty directional. I do a bit of Parks on the air, and log it with HAMRS. That program has a map of your contacts(so do others). It's an inverted V, the center is up 16 feet or so. I log a bunch of contacts in East/West configuration, then move the ends for North/South and start picking up folks in those directions. It never ceases to entertain me.
Joe
 
Had a couple of neat rx on my sdr yesterday, still on the inverted V, from "The South of France" and another frim Yukon Territory. This is all new to me so I'm still impressed with whatever longish distances I can hear.

I ordered the IC-7300 from DX as a Christmas present for myself. With any luck it should arrive Friday.

Recieved the final few parts for my 2x 20ah lifepo4 in a 50cal plastic ammo can creation. It's got a 2x usb hub, SAE panel mount, double Anderson power pole panel mount, cig lighter, and a pair 4mm banana plugs all switched on a relay thru a fuse block with a volt/ammeter gauge.
 
The 7300 won’t disappoint. Best value on the hf market right now, I don’t care what anyone else says. There are several hundred videos on YouTube on setting it up. It will do all you ever want to do on hf unless you get real deep off in it. I kick myself for selling mine a few years ago. I want the ic7610, I use an ic756 proIII, which is its grandpa among other radios I have. I’m an icom guy…
 
We have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
 
The ic-7300 is working out rather well. Way, way better than the sdr dongle as far as rx sensitivity and filtering. Big thanks to @hp468 and many other that suggested it.
I haven't done any TX yet, still listening and learning, but I've heard Brazil, Japan, Mexico, England, Yukon Territory and Newfoundland on 10m along with darn near every state in the US.
40m was alive and kicking last night, so busy that I could not have found any band space to call CQ if I wanted to. Caught the end of "Radio Romania" playing gypsy music loud and clear.
Still on 40m, I was picking up multiple conversations on the same freq, both parties seemingly unaware of the other with no QRM. That was all on the 10m inverted V, must have just been right place, right time. With that same antenna on the sdr I got nothing at all.
 
Not to hijack… but would it be wise to use a cheap tablet with a sdr dongle , to keep the open source programs out of my laptop?
Also… I met a guy 2 weeks ago who used a 26ga wire in a retractable spool as a variable/adjustable length end fed on a usdx+ transceiver rigged up to be very mobile. That I am hoping to emulate.
 
@foopid stucker
I don't have an answer on the tablet/dongle. I've not read of anyone having virus type problems with the software but I suppose it's only a matter of time.

I've seen some really interesting plans for retractable POA type end fed antennas. One particularly cool one was using a chaulk line reel with braided copper fishing line. The chaulk reel used has 4 index points that the handle snaps into to lock in for length.
 
Yes. His was a chalk line reel. I was surprised that the unused “coil” of antenna did not cause any measurable resistance. His intent was to mark lengths with different colors of paint on the wire itself.

I have made a dipole antenna but am procrastinating on which transceiver to invest in. With the intent to be portable.
 
Another day, another DX. Germany this time, still so new that I am still completely fascinated by all of this. Busted a pile up again on the first try with a signal report of "over 5-10 extremely strong"
 
Johnny said:
Getting into Amateur Radio, my main interest is antenna voodoo. I've been doing a lot of online searching, to the point that everything is becoming a blur.

In an effort to get my feet wet and maybe learn a thing or two along the way, I've built a ground plane antenna for 2m and another for 70cm with tig filler rod and SO-239 chassis mounts. I haven't done any testing at a significant enough height to judge them yet.

I have yet to procure an hf transceiver so an SDR is all I have to play around with at the moment. I made a 10m (math stuff for 28.4mHz) horizontal dipole with an air wound choke balun out of coax. The math/measurements check out but the only thing I hear on 10m seems to be ft8 and some cw in the lower part of the band. I get near perfect CB reception with it though.
The inverted V with banana to bnc that I built for 28.4 picks up 27.025 incredibly well. Its 25' up on a fiberglass pole at about 65°. At least I've had Motormouth Maul out of California to entertain me.😏

I also put together a 4:1 and a 1:1 balun/unun. The both ohm out right on the money with the right resistor test stack.

Am I wasting my time by doing this without an antenna analyzer and an hf rig and just the SDR?


So, beyond all that, have ya got any links, recipes or favorite flavors?
Click to expand...


As long as you only use it for Rxing and not Txing, I have found it worthwhile to keep a roll of 24AWG wire with an allegator clip on one end and a 1 oz lead sinker on the other to be a versatile thing to keep paired with my handheld scanners. Compact if the wire is around 20 feet and an additional 20 feet of fishing line between the wire and the lead sinker. The allegator holds the paperclip (AKA the UHF antenna) that goes into the BNC pin hole. Height seems to always beat out proper cut antenna length, at least for my purposes.


No need for the HAM folks to flame me to death, just saying this has worked nicely for me.
 
On receive the length isn’t critical. Generally the more wire in the air the better. I am not one of those “sad” hams as they are often called. If it works, it works, regardless of whether it’s by the book. I’m more of a you do you, type ham.
 
I just bought a nano vna.

Hi, my name is Johnny and I'm an addict.

I'm going to be analyzing anything and everything that can possibly be considered an antenna.

I have been fortunate enough to be "taken under the wing" of an old MACV-SOG ham that is a super antenna nerd. He has shared his build notes and vna print outs of several of his antenna builds. The wealth of knowledge he has dumped on me so far has been absolutely priceless.
 
Johnny said:
First confirmed DX this morning, busted the pile up on my first try, 5-9 into Italy on my 10m inverted V.
Waiting for some parts and pieces to build an OCF Bullet multiband.
Click to expand...
Too cool. Glad you got the 7300. My first HF contact was also Italy! Less than a year later I'm at 79 countries on every continent. Glad you got the Nano VNA too. You won't be disappointed.
Welcome to the dark side.

Joe
 
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The nano Vna is a handy tool. So much more uses than just checking an antenna. I love mine, I want a tiny sa too.
 
noway2 said:
Balundesigns.com I built an OCF dipole that worked great up to 80m. A friend helped me put it up and put a “Rig Analyzer“ on it which showed it performing well in all bands. I stupidly paid for a 3kw balun when my output was 100w max. It stayed with the house when I sold it as the agreement said all antennas stay. Well, ok. Good luck.
Click to expand...

You sold to another ham?? That's amazing. :)
 
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