[TowerTalk] Field Day 40 Antenna Story

[Mel Martin]

Why bother with a rotating dipole... we've use a simple inverted vee for
Field Day for years, and 40M is a bottomless pit of contacts.
Directivity is hardly an issue at a height of 30-40 Ft. Crossed dipoles
are unlikely to result in significant gain. I suspect it's mental... if
you have confidence in the antenna it seems to work well.... the power
of positive thinking ;-)

Lee Buller wrote:
> 
> 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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-- 

Mel Martin
mel@interlink.net
VE2DC

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