I picked up a Ten-Tec 1208 6m transverter at a ham fest last summer for a
good price. I have only been able to use it a few times with my portable
fiberglass mast. Now I am thinking of putting up a permanent antenna.
I do not have a tower yet, so my best location for the antenna seems to be
the 45ft tall spruce tree in the front yard. I already have a 2m J-pole in
that tree. It is fed with 0.5-inch cable TV hard line. The hard line is
trimmed to a half wave multiple on 2m so I see 50 ohms in the shack.
Unfortunately, I was too cheap when I dug the trench in the yard for the
hard line to lay any control cables or extra feed lines. Now I am wondering
how I can feed both a 6m and a 2m antenna with the same line. Is a diplexer
a practical solution? Obviously, the antenna will have to be
omnidirectional. Is it even worth the time and expense to put up a 6m
antenna like this? After all, we are on the downhill side of the sun spot
cycle.
Now to complicate the things, I am wondering if I could use a triplexer and
add some low band sloper antennas to the same tree. Is that a practical
idea, or am I really asking for trouble?
Keep in mind that whatever I do needs to work without any fiddling after it
is put up. I do not like climbing that tree more than once a year!
Jeff Burns
AD9T
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