Hi folks - I'm brand new to the list.
My interest in reduced-size HF antennas has often led me to consider the
technique proposed by N0KHQ (amongst others) of using coaxial cable as
an antenna element in order to benefit from its reduced wave velocity.
The technique has always seemed to me "too good to be true", but until
this past weekend I never bothered to look any deeper.
Over the past couple of days I've made some measurements on a simple
dipole constructed from RG58, and carried out some EZNEC modelling, to
try to understand the mechanisms at play. The results are on my web site
if anyone cares to take a look:
http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/coax_antennas/
You'll also find loads of stuff on the site about the Hexbeam, which is
my other passion!
The conclusions in a nutshell are:
1) It's an electrically short dipole which is centre-loaded by two
inductive coax stubs
2) Made from RG58 the stubs add considerable series resistance, leading
to unacceptable losses
3) The stubs' series resistance, added to the short dipole's low Rrad,
tends to produce acceptable SWR figures which may well fool the unwary
into thinking the antenna is behaving well!
4) Performance bandwidth is much reduced, although not as much as if the
stubs were lossless :)
5) In a multi-element array, other factors such as
driver/reflector/director spacings will preclude the antenna size
shrinking uniformly by the Velocity Factor.
Apologies if this is all "old hat". The results were of interest to me
and seem to confirm Terry's (N6RY) comments in a very old thread:
http://lists.contesting.com/_towertalk/2005-05/msg00562.html
73,
Steve G3TXQ
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|