[My Ham Radio Journey] wanted to see if a “common person” (in his words) could build an effective vertical ham radio antenna. If you look at the video below, the answer is apparently yes.
He started with a 24-foot fishing rod and a roll of 22 gauge wire. The height of the antenna wire is just over 20 feet long and he has several ground radials, as you might expect for a vertical antenna.
You also need a toroid to make an unun for the feed point. The details of how he mounted everything will be useful if you want to experiment with making your own version.
Vertical antennas have plusses and minuses. One advantage is they have a low angle of radiation, which is good for long distance communication. It is possible to make arrays of vertical antennas, and we are surprised we haven’t seen any of those lately.
In the end, it looks like the antenna works well. With the 4:1 transformer, the SWR on all the ham bands is within range of the radio’s tuner.
We recently saw a fishing pole antenna that used no wire at all. If you want portable and fishing isn’t your thing, try a tape measure.
Nice! Now bring that up the mountain with us!
https://www.sota.org.uk/
Or make nature your hamshack with World Wide Flora & Fauna https://wwff.co/ :)
“It is possible to make arrays of vertical antennas, and we are surprised we haven’t seen any of those lately.”
Google “4-square antenna” and you’ll see examples and references galore. And if you Google “fishing pole antenna” you’ll see lots of those as well.
Now, do side-by-side comparisons to a simple dirt-cheap center-fed half-wave wire (14 ga. Flexweave for durability) dipole. You’ll find about a 30 dB improvement in performance coming and going. Plus much easier transportation from site to site, because it rolls up for your pack.
Add a few in-line insulators (home made from poly water piping) with jumpers in the right places for as many HF bands as you want above the dipole’s base length. Do not worry about a balun.
I’ve used such a dipole constructed for 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 meters for 45 years of backpack and campsite operation. It has never disappointed.
It also requires very little if any reactance insertion by the ATU. Hams today forget that reactance inserted by an ATU is always lossy. The myth of the magical miniature ATU that matches even the worst antenna (like short verticals) without ATU losses has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by most hams today.
Unless I’m mistaken a center-fed half wave would require that the ends be elevated at a height (math) above ground. Depending on your location this may not be feasible. Not everyone has 50 foot vertical mounting points (trees, telephone pole, etc.). If you have a site that it works for you then go for it.
Part of being a ham is having fun and making contacts with what you have. -Just make the contact.- Just have fun.
I know at my QTH the best I could do is 24 ft above ground and that performed miserably. However my ground mounted flagpole cough vertical with significant ground radials performs quite well. By quite well I mean “I can hear them, they can hear me, they are in the log”
Also, in the field I’ve have really good luck with a portable telescopic vertical and 4-radials. In fact this summer I worked the U.K. on 10 watts from the U.S. with a ground mounted portable vertical (Chelegance mc-750). I also made several other hops across the pond and several POTA stations. The end fed sat unused as it was “deaf” even though I got it up 50ft on the first throw.
I just don’t see someone (me) going through all the trouble to put a dipole up for a few hours or a weekend when it takes ~5 minutes to set up a vertical with a very modest radial field (qty 4) and make contacts.
nice – 24 ft fishig rod. there’s a vitamin i didn’t know i needed. only $50 for 10m telescoping carbon fiber??
Where do you find that?
i just googled ’24ft fishing rod’ :)
I use the 17′ versions of the fiberglass telescoping fishing poles for my dipole (with some aluminum MIG welding wire for antenna) and occasionally telescope them in and out, apply some tape, and trim the wire to achieve resonance. I love those fishing poles, and they can be had for cheap if you really dig and don’t mind waiting. Note that real carbon may not be the best choice for an antenna however, since it’s (supposed to be) conductive, when it’s not simply black fiberglass when it shows up.
So…. it’s an EFHW.
Next up, Hack-a-day covers the venerable dipole!
Hey Jack W3CT,
I am only like 7 months new to amature radio and so far having a lot of fun learning about the hobby. I really liked your video. Thank you for taking us along on your build ! My questions is, did you have to tune that antenna once you hooked it up and what was the SWR reading you got when tested ? I would’ve liked to have seen that on your video as well ! I apologize if those are dumb questions but I am very much in the early learning stages of the hobby. I am very interested in trying to build my own antennas as I get started. Any suggestions for a good low cost SWR Meter and tuners would also be appreciated.
Thank you,
KE9AUH, Scott
scott, a little bit of tuning is always good with this kind of vertical. but you’d be surprised, if you’re running qrp especially, how easily you can get something to work. I’ve been using verticals for over 30 years with great results, though most of my verticals have been elevated feed point which I think is works great though it’s a pain to put up. good luck 73 from ac4rd! ken
I would think that the only issue with a fiberglass or carbon fiber pole would be a grounding issue. I have used two chain link fence poles to elevate a dipole thus cutting down need for extra ground wire!