Multiband Wire Antenna - Looking for Comments


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Posted by:  Cal Cotner K4JSI

Posted On:  08/22/02

Subject:  Multiband Wire Antenna - Looking for Comments

Message Posted:

After many years of using a 30 foot aluminum foil doublet in the attic, I'd like to put up an outdoor wire antenna usable on all bands from 80M - 10M. About 136 feet of wire is all I could accommodate, and at that length an off-center fed geometry would be the best choice. Two German hams described an off-center fed antenna with a 46 foot wire in parallel with the basic 136 foot antenna, and reported reasonable VSWRs across the CW portion of all bands (including the WARC bands) from 80 - 10. Does anyone know of a manufacturer of this antenna? And, were I to build it myself, how critical is a 6:1 balun vs a 4:1 balun? I don't mind using an ATU and most of the feedline would be very low loss, e.g., 1/2 inch Andrew cable.

Otherwise, I have one of the 90 foot B&W T2FD antennas, and I could sling that up. But L.B. Cebik, W4RNL, indicates that this antenna loses a lot of steam at 3.5 MHz and over the rest of the HF spectrum is down about 5-6 DB from a dipole. As a QRP op, that concerns me. What experiences have others had with the T2FD?

Any comments would be welcome, either direct to me at caljsi@aol.com, or if this is deemed interesting, to the reflector.

72/73
Cal K4JSI
QRP ARCI #5693
GQRP #3283



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