Ham Radio . Magnum Experimentum
Antennas, experiments, engineering and other articles of interest to radio folks.
Simulations and testing are shown in these articles about ham radio, and a few other, antennas.
With the upcoming solar cycle pushing operations on the HF bands towards success on 20 meters to 10 meters you might be wondering if a vertical antenna may be the right choice for making the most of this time.
Well, to be honest you may well have just as much success with a simple horizontal dipole strung up.
Dipoles are pretty easy to build and don’t cost too much if you would rather purchase one from Alpha-Delta or the Wireman.
However, if you…
The topic of balanced to unbalanced converters is broad, detailed and deserving of study to apply them where needed. However, this post will discuss the simplest balun of all… the Choke Balun.
Many balun designs convert impedances 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 1:9 and up.
If you are fortunate enough to have equipment to measure return loss of your antenna system here is a chart that will convert the return loss in dB to SWR…
The BigIR antenna from Fluid Motion looks like a winner, but there are some concerns about the 80 meter option.
If you are like many recently licensed Amateur Radio operators your first purchase may well be a good Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu or other brand Handy-Talkie or HT two way radio. These are most frequently for the 2 meter and 70 centi-meter bands (144 and 440 MHz).
The antenna that comes with your radio is probably about 8 inches long and is a compromise between convenient length and performance.