Another possibility is the relative of the G5RV the ZS6BKW seems to work well for me slung between trees on 40, 20,17, 12 and 10. Seems less good on 15 and narrow bandwidth on 80. http://www.nc4fb.org/wordpress/zs6bkw-multi-band-antenna/
I have not done relative tests but for me it has the advantage of coax at the house end rather than trying to get balanced feed round double glazing.
I presume that should be AGL not ASL? Otherwise watch out on stormy nights near the North Sea coast HI!
In any case, getting back on subject, my first post about the wire sky-loop (40m full wave horizontal loop) was accompanied by my write up on how to build this (very cheap) antenna. The link I put in to the commercially available one was simply as some amateurs are unable to build things, disabled, blind etc. and we want SOTA to be inclusive. I agree with you that one should build one’s own antennas if possible. It can be a very annoying action but once you have your own home-built antenna working, it’s a great feeling!
Good luck with getting the Beam up again.
73 Ed.
Well spotted Ed. Yes I meant 40 feet AGL - ABOVE GROUND LEVEL. My QTH is actually 60 metres ASL - ABOVE SEA LEVEL.
Once again we see the quirky mix of feet and metres in the same sentence, which some of us English tend to do…
73 Phil
I was thinking of trying one of those. How well does it work on 160 metres? My G5RV doublet works surprisingly well on that band and any change that I make must at least match the G5RV’s performance.
Actually shorting the inner and outer of the coax on my 40m loop and using that against an earth stake has a lovely dip in the 160m band - I was surprised. It seems the approach or shorting (non-earthed) coax and working it against ground is a common method to get antenna to work (at least somewhat) on bands lower that they are supposed to.
I wonder if we’ve lost Scott yet - so much information to what seemed like a “simple” question!
73 Ed.
I tried something like this - my G5RV is fed with a long length of 300 ohm window ribbon, so I joined the ends in the shack and tried it on Top Band. It loaded very well, but the noise increased by about four S points so I abandoned the experiment.
For us hams it is impossible to talk too much about antennas!
HI Brian no problem. This is what I have worked with the OCFD since January 2017. Unable to say if this will better the G5RV on160m. GX0OOO strongly featured.
73 de Phil
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Thanks, Phil, that looks encouraging so I’ll try one out during the summer doldrums, I’ve got everything necessary to build one already in the shack.
A noise increase makes sense. If the feedline is long enough, that acting as a vertical antenna, while the horizontal part is a very large capacity hat. Vertical antennas often pick up more noise than horizontals.
wunder
To the op:
Google VE7CA 2 elemant, tri band portable yagi. I can’t copy and paste it from my phone.
Its cheap to make, homebrew yagi with acceptable forward gain. I’m 1/2 through building 1 for activations.
Malen
VE6VID
Here’s the link to the ARRL QST article as a PDF file https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwicoaCexeLbAhXhO5oKHe_oCjQQFggpMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.arrl.org%2Ffiles%2Ffile%2FTechnology%2Ftis%2Finfo%2Fpdf%2F0111035.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0PLlr5qrtEfcTUcozMM-3P
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Thanks for that.
Malen
Thanks for all your comments. Good advice. Two of the themes were the loop antenna and the OCF dipole, both wire antennas that I can build and raise myself. I plan to try both. Thanks again to all.
Scott kw4jm
Friends, I began this topic so I wanted to report that as a result of your advice I put up a horizontal loop. It was quite an undertaking but fun and great exercise. I read many articles and found that the variables are length, height, coax vs window, and balun or not. I found recommendations for every permutation. So I put up 430 feet of wire fed with coax and a 4:1 balun at the radiator end. My height ranges from 35 to 50 feet, which is a function of our trees. Likewise the length - I wanted a resonant length (558’ or 287’) but the trees ruled. The kx3 tuner tunes it on every band.
I have had it up for 24 hours now and notice significantly stronger signals in many cases, switching back and forth from my fan dipole. It is also noticeably quieter in most cases. I have been using it successfully for the 13 Colonies so there is a lot to listen to. Also Baker Island though i haven’t scored a qso yet. Two of my colonies were qrp which was my main interest in asking your advice.
I hope to tinker with it - with window line and with and without the balun to see if it does any better. But thus far I am pleased with the result. Please feel free to make suggestions. Thx agn for your advice. 73de Scott kw4jm
Well done with joining the skyloop club. I think the lower noise floor is the biggest advantage. It is a forgiving antenna as regards height and shape but gives the most gain with the maximum area within the loop, whatever shape you can get it to fit in the area you have. With 131m of wire out there, that’s a large area in any case.
You might even get some good coverage on top band even though it is a bit short.
have fun, 73 Ed.