ARROW Communications Association

Well, with the new fan dipole built for 40 and 80m, I was ready to put it up. It looked pretty sturdy, and I felt I would be able to get it up in the air SOMEHOW.

I attached one end to the rope I put over the tall tree in episode 10, but when I pulled it up the feedpoint was still almost on the ground. That tree was nowhere near as tall as it looked. The end insulator stuck at the first branch, and it took some doing to pull it through -- I had intended to pull it out at as close to a right angle from the vertical dipole as possible -- but eventually it came through. Still, it was clear that "my eyes were bigger than my tape measure", and the tree just isn't tall enough -- possibly 60' up to that branch, but maybe a little less. I fussed with it, and fussed with it some more, but eventually had to give it up as a bad job and take the dipole back down.

Now I had a very nicely built 40/80m fan dipole without a home. I rolled it up and stuck it back in the box I had rolled the coax out of, and eventually took it out to Field Day, where it still remained in the box. It's still there.

But meanwhile, my brain hatched a plot to do something similar, and maybe even better, though I might not include 80m in this one ... my new 40/80 fan dipole was just too long, even for my huge trees. They have branches at intermediate heights, so pulling it up horizontally is pretty much out of the question -- I thought of that first.

So here's my idea: I will use similar construction to first build a 40m ground plane out of wire. I'll solder four 33.5' wires to an SO-239 connector, one to the center pin and three (or four, actually) to the holes in the connector flange. I'll strain relief the wires (somehow) so there is no tension on the connector itself. Then I can pull the vertical wire up to the tree branch and use contractor's string to pull the radials out at the closest-to-horizontal angles I can. After that, a quick tuning check, and possibly a lowering and snipping of the wires to put it near the center of the 40m band. (I'll also check to see how it tunes on 15m.)

Once the antenna is working as a 40m ground plane, I will take it back down and attach a piece of my lawn chair plastic, possibly 18" or more long, at an appropriate position on the vertical wire. This will be used to suspend additional wires as I construct a "fan vertical". (Take a look at the lastest Hygain design that replaces the hold Hy-tower for an idea where I'm going with this.)

Next I will suspend a wire cut for 30m from this support, and add a few extra pieces of lawn chair plastic to keep the wire from wrapping around or touching the 40m wire. Then I will add 30m radials to the 40m radials, hanging them down by similar pieces of lawn chair plastic. If this works, I will repeat this with a set of 20m wires.

After I add each new set of wires I check *all* the bands, as there will be some interaction that could detune the previously added sections. I will probably stop with the 3rd set (20m), as I will then have a ground plane for 40/30/20/15m. I sure hope it works. I'll write more when I can get around to doing this, but, right now, the idea sure sounds great.

Happy antenna building, and 73 de kt8k - Tim