[TowerTalk] Field Day 40 Antenna Story

[Lee Buller]

Just to make conversation......

I was at a FD site that was having trouble with thier 40 meter rotatable
dipole on the tower.  It just would not work.  They had no other plan
except Butternuts on 40 meters.  I have nothing against Butternuts....but
there are better ways to radiate RF.

I had heard on the reflector here several years ago about crossed 40 meter
dipoles of which I tried and worked well.

I scrounged up enough wire at the FD site and some very old and bad coax
and put together a crossed 40 meter dipole.  I found three 10 foot poles
and place the dipoles at 30 foot and guyed off the pole with some rope that
was laying around.  Total cost of building this thing was $0.00.  The
center insulator was a piece of PVC pipe which was found at the site.

The antenna was roughly matched with a MFJ259.  We cut off 6" and the KFY
said it was good to go at 7.100.

The results were next to amazing on 40 meters.  The RTTY station used the
antenna early in the afternoon and was working all over the US.  He quickly
filled up several log pages.  Later on in the night and the
wee-hours-of-the-morning, the CW station kicked some serious bootie.  The
antenna was able to work close in and far out.

Just wondered if anyone else had used a similar antenna in a contest
operation?

Lee Buller
k0wa@southwind.net



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