My Antenna Setup in 9A


Bok!
Nothing special here, just a few pics of a homebrew dipole for 10m that works very well. It is the antenna I used during my October 2001 and subsequent operations (January 2002, April 2002, August 2002, January 2003) in Zagreb, Croatia. Working conditions:

The top of the V is at about 2.7 metres from the lower roof level, that is about 5.7m from the ground. The picture was taken from the ground, looking approximately towards East.
The balun (RF choke, see details below) is hanging from a rafter, with a butcher's hook.
Horizontal black stripes are telephone and electricity cables, but no RFI/TVI were noticed, probably due to the low power of my transmitter.

The balun of the dipole consists of 10 turns of the coax cable on a plastic container. Coil former diameter is about 6 cm.
Competition! I'll pay a drink to the first person that recognises what the coil former originally was! :-)

Although this configuration is not the best, I managed to work US East Coast (with troubles). No problems instead with UA, G, EI, with extremely strong signals. All 10m QRP SSB.

Next step should be to move the dipole a bit higher, that is to hang it at the top of TV mast (can be seen behind). Just have to find a safe way to get all the way up :-) Or at least on the 2nd floor roof.

Photos courtesy of XYL :-)

2007 update

Since I bought an FT-817, I needed a sort-of multiband antenna, to use instead of the 10m dipole removed in 2003. I used a 4m fiberglass fishing rod to support 10m of wire outside of the window. The rod lies on a branch and rests on the window frame, so care must be taken in case of wind. An L-tuner matches this suboptimal antenna.
The "hot" side of the antenna is split in two halves, knotted at the rod top. I then laid the furthermost 5m of wire along the branches using the fishing rod as a pencil (see highlight in the picture). The lower 5m of wire run free close to the rod and enter the room through the window. Other 10m of wire act as a counterpoise.
I could tune 80, 40, 30 and 20m but time allowed only 2-way QRP contacts on 40m CW.


Left: the fishing rod seen from inside. Right: view from outside, the antenna is almost invisible!

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