The Home Depot Special is a 1/4-wave piece of #16 stranded wire
(black insulation), suspended from a tall tree (a small sequoia
sempervirens), with four 1/4-wave radials elevated as high as NJ2L
can reach while standing on his toes. The tree is about 1/5-wave
in height, so visualize the antenna as a "sloping vertical".
Home Depot is the name of the hardware store in Salinas (birthplace
of the American writer John Steinbeck) where I bought the spool of
wire. K6NA has since advised that the antenna would have a better
kharmic balance if I had bought a spool of wire at a surplus store.
Live and learn.
Next three projects:
1) Build a half-scale version of the same antenna for 3.5 MHz
(I have no antenna for that band at the moment)
2) Put up an RX antenna -- all stations worked so far have been
using the HD-Speical on RX; for my first attempt I'm going
to try a 580' Europe beverage (no EU QSOs yet)
3) Add more radials to the HD-Special if anyone can convince me
it will *really* make a difference
--Trey, N5KO
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