Windom and Up and Outer Antenna

For my sota activations I use a( linked) up and outer antenna. During fielddays we often use windom antennas with good success, if they are up high.Has anyone tried combining these two designs? I could not find anything on the internet.
73,Chris-OE5CSP

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I have had success with a 20/15/10m Windom with the long leg vertical and the short leg horizontal about 2.5m above the ground. I only took it down because water got in at the feed point despite my attempts at waterproofing!

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Hello Chris
The term ā€œWindomā€ can mean all manner of antennas depending on how they are fed. Are you asking about the modern variant of the ā€œWindomā€ - the Off Centre Fed Dipole fed with coax?

73 Phil G4OBK

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That is certainly what I was referring to, Phil. The original Windom was a very different thing which I have never experimented with.

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Yes,I am talking about OCF dipoles like Fritzel FD4 or FD3.I am interested in a design covering at least 20 and 40m.The up and outer antenna is doing fine but I have to take the vertical part of the antenna down to change bands.73-Chris

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Ok Chris - you could do worse than use Robā€™s @DM1CM antenna design page for making an OCFD or two. Using it I built two fed with RG-174 thin coax and took them to Germany for an 8 day tour in June/July and they seemed to do the job well. I built one short version for 20/10m and another longer one for 40/20/10m. The longer antenna seemed to outperform the shorter one on 10m when there was some propagation, excellent match on 10m, no need for an ATU. I used the QRP 4:1 balun kits that SOTABeams sell. Very cheap.

Ref: DM1CM OCFD design page

Ref: Balun Kit

73 Phil G4OBK

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Phil, did you use the shorter leg as an elevated radial?
73,Chris

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No, both legs mounted atop a 6m pole like a normal dipole would be. Now I know what you mean by Up and Outer - it could work in that config, worth trying for sureā€¦ I know when I was in Tenerife in February in a thick low covered wood on EA8/TF-012 I could not get a conventional dipole out for 10m so I used one 2.8m (approx) side of the 10m dipole taped to the pole as a vertical element and ran the other side out sideways just above ground level. The ATU in the KX3 brought it to resonance. Admittedly condx were pretty good on 10m as they often are on EA8 and I made 51 10m QSOs in less than an hour.

73 Phil

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Precisely why I changed my vertical to a loaded type using a Slidewinder coil (other makes are available). I use 4 sloping 5m fixed length counterpoises / radials. To get the antenna to perform best in one direction, I group the wires in that direction, set out at around 30 degrees to one another, maybe with a single wire behind.

In general I use a linked inverted vee dipole covering 60/40/30m and have had considerable success using it on bands other than it is designed for by making it into an off-centre fed dipole. One side set for 60m and the other 40m works well as a wavelength and a half OFCD on 17m.

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The term ā€œsuccessā€ is equally poorly defined!

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Indeed Richard. In my case success = 4 contacts made reasonably easily before I get thoroughly soaked to the skin. :joy:

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Hi Chris, everyone.

Iā€™m using an L-shaped OCF antenna as shown in the photo. Not for 40m, but 5bands from 20m to 10m. Success? Sometimes I can connect with DX by 5W CW, if Iā€™m lucky. :laughing:

The vertical element is a direct-fed carbon rod, about 5.5m long. The horizontal part is a metal telescopic rod, about 1.5m long. I put a tapped loading coil at the corner of the ā€˜Lā€™ and basically tune it at half a wavelength.

For 20m and 17m, as a result, the SWR is generally under 1.5 and no need to use the tuner. For 15m, I just need to keep the 17m setting and shrink the horizontal element.

For 10m, I was originally planning to tune it at one wavelength with the 20m setting. So far that hasnā€™t worked out, so I shorten the vertical element to accommodate. This is a bit of a pain.

Only 12m requires impedance matching with the built-in tuner. However it is very repeatable and no dial adjustments are needed.

After further research, I plan to turn this prototype into a smaller box with just one rotary switch.

73 Tetsuya

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