I have needed to get back on the HF bands for some time, but from my suburban location getting an effective antenna was always going to be a problem. This picture shows a sat view of the house with distances marked up.
There are several questions to answer – what is an effective antenna? Which bands? DX vs EU vs intra-G? The problem is that I want it all, who doesn’t, but can only really manage a single low profile (i.e. wire) solution.
I have a pole at the bottom of the garden that is about 7m tall and it seems that I have two general options. 1) is a monopole of sorts 2) is a doublet or multiband dipole. The monopole is an OK option as I have enough room to get in an inverted L that will be effective on 80m, but the downside is that I can only have radials in my own garden and not 360 degrees around the antenna base. The doublet dipole solution is also OK, but it will be quite low to the ground and I have the additional problem of routing potentially unsightly feeder to the radio position.
Whilst a 30m (100ft) span doublet fed with open wire really appeals, I have decided to try the inverted L with auto ATU approach as I have an extensive network of radials buried in the garden already. Based on work by the late W4RNL I chose a 95 foot version (although I do not have the same vertical component as LB’s model) It only took me a few hours over the weekend to install and I am finally back on the HF bands. First QSO was YI9PSE in Iraq on 20m, so it does seem to work, even though I doubt it will ever be a killer antenna. It’s nice to be back.
I have a pole at the bottom of the garden that is about 7m tall and it seems that I have two general options. 1) is a monopole of sorts 2) is a doublet or multiband dipole. The monopole is an OK option as I have enough room to get in an inverted L that will be effective on 80m, but the downside is that I can only have radials in my own garden and not 360 degrees around the antenna base. The doublet dipole solution is also OK, but it will be quite low to the ground and I have the additional problem of routing potentially unsightly feeder to the radio position.
Whilst a 30m (100ft) span doublet fed with open wire really appeals, I have decided to try the inverted L with auto ATU approach as I have an extensive network of radials buried in the garden already. Based on work by the late W4RNL I chose a 95 foot version (although I do not have the same vertical component as LB’s model) It only took me a few hours over the weekend to install and I am finally back on the HF bands. First QSO was YI9PSE in Iraq on 20m, so it does seem to work, even though I doubt it will ever be a killer antenna. It’s nice to be back.
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