Bruce K1BG was contacted by Gary K1EBM from Brookline NH. Gary can’t get around very well any more, and asked for help with an antenna. Bruce convinced John KK1X to help, so in the middle of September, they removed a doublet that wasn’t working. It was temporarily replaced with an ICOM AH-4 random wire tuner on loan from Bruce, and a random piece of wire.
That didn’t work so well either, so on October 3, Bruce, John, and Bob AB1EO returned to the scene of the crime and removed the random wire antenna. Bruce had rebuilt the doublet to the proper dimensions, and that doublet was installed in its place. To be honest, Gary had the setup nailed. 1/2″ (12mm) Dacron rope, pulleys in the trees, and large cleats fastened to the trees. We taped the doublet to the support rope at approximately 6 foot (2m) intervals. The doublet is solid wire, so it will last longer with minimal flexing,
While Bob and Bruce were determining the sweet spots for the tuner in the shack, John dropped a sloping 40m EFHW antenna, and relocated it according to Gary’s wishes – “more horizontal.” The doublet and EFHW are nearly perpendicular. It’s hard to keep things orthogonal when trees aren’t on grids…
Bruce doing final check before hoisting the doublet skyward
Plans are pending for the installation of a 40m bobtail curtain antenna. KK1X wrote about a half-square antenna in the November 2023 issue of the Signal. A bobtail is essentially two half-squares arranged end-to-end, fed in the center. There’s a nice article at Hamuniverse covering the half square, double half square, and the bobtail. I’m not going to steal his pictures.
Gary is reporting that the new antenna arrangement is working quite nicely. He’s excited to get the bobtail back. He had to remove the other one he’d been using.
73 de KK1X