|
Inspired by the "fan dipole" article in the June 2010 QST (page 41), I lashed up a spider's web of a fan antenna in the attic. Not sure if I'll be able to get out real well with it, but the K2 ATU handled the match at least. Here are some of the pictures.
Clearly, I didn't make this waterproof. Not only that, but it's downright sloppy. After all, it IS an attic, and it was starting to get uncomfortably warm up there. The wires are interwoven among the supporting posts.
  This was one of those quick projects, nevermore to be repeated. The attic is only about 55 feet at the most. I happened to have an old G5RV antenna in the wire box, so I chopped it up for 40 and 20 meters: each side was 51 ft to start, so when I was done each side was about 33.5 and 17.5 feet.
The results? The SWR on 40 runs from 4.8 at 7 MHz to 3.3 at 7.3. The SWR on 20 is a tad better: 1.2 at 14 to 1.5 at 14.2. The K2 matches all this easily. More later on how it gets out ...
Later arrives ... it's not so hot. I put up a simple dipole outside the office window, and although it's not much better, it does seem to have some potential. The K2 lets me click from one antenna to the other easily, and sometimes one's better, sometimes the other is. Neither of them are nearly as good as the 130' Carolina Windom up 50' in the trees. The coax is on the other side of the house and runs down to the shop where the K3 lives ... and gets the best antenna.
|
Projects 
