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JaapKroes

Joined: Fri, Dec 2nd 2011, 17:50 Roles: N/A Moderates: N/A

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Topic Author Posted On
Longwire Antenna WB8ZTP on 6/12/11
Okay, Bob and Simon,

Thank you so much for your quick responses. Since winter is almost upon us, I'm going to put the antenna up with just the minimum direction as per the vendor and when spring comes around again, I will do what Bob suggested (experiment).

Simon, the matching device appears to be a transformer with wire wound on a ferrite core. It is pretty heavy wire so it should be able take some power without a problem.

I'm getting to the age where climbing on towers and/or roofs is inadvisable for safety sake. In my early years of ham radio I had up an 80 foot tower with a Mosley Tribander. 80 and 40 were covered with half wave dipoles. After many years of inactivity and about 4 QTHs later, I find myself with a reasonably long but narrow yard. After much study of the environment, I decided the most reasonable solution would be either a multi band vertical or a fairly long end fed wire. Verticals work well with a large ground plane (radial) system for which I just didn't have space to layout properly. I've experimented with verticals in the past but never with an end fed. I have to hire someone to put it up for me and I'm designing it such that I will be able to take it down from terra firma, make mods and hoist it back up. Fingers crossed. I have an antenna tuner that should work and I will only be running 100 watts out with an old Kenwood TS-830S. Needless to say, I'm really pumped to get on the air again and learn about a whole lot of new stuff that ham radio has evolved into.

Thanks again, fellows.

Jaap
WB0AQW
Longwire Antenna WB8ZTP on 5/12/11
Bob,

When you state, "My ground system is good enough for it to work all the way up to 6 meters without RF feedback", I would love to have a much more in depth explanation of what steps you took to obtain that ground system with an end fed wire.
I'm in the process of putting up a 124' end fed with a matching coil in a junction box. That coil is across the coax center conductor and the shield which is attached to a groundlug as well. According to the vendor, running a wire to ground is optional but that my coaxial feed line should be at least 33 feet long. This means to me that the other half of my antenna is going to be the shield of the coax. Is this okay? Won't I have RF feedback? Therefore my question as to how a 'good enough ground' is constructed so I won't have this feedback. Details would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Jaap Kroes
WB0AQW

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