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30m GP v2018

For years I have been looking for a way to have my cake and eat it too when it comes to antennas but there absolutely is no free lunch. So much for the culinary idioms. Having all bands from 7 MHz up to 50 MHz on one antenna first of all is a very expensive thing and second: it’s a dangerous solution as it boils down to a dynamic antenna with a lot of electronics and moving parts. Yikes!

I wrote about all that before and an update is long overdue. In the mean time I decided to put up a 30m GP to get on the air on my favorite band when the tower is down. It needed to be made of wire and a fiberglass pole.

I was about to cut three wires as it dawned on me: I could use my 30m dipole and add a third leg to function as a second radial. I took one stretch of copper wire and made it as long as the other two legs. The wire that is connected to the coax’ center conductor went up. The ‘cold’ wire got an extra length of copper. So I had a vertical wire with an elevated feed point and two radials sloping down almost 45° from horizontal. I hooked up the antenna analyzer and *drumroll* the SWR dip was right where it was supposed to be.

This is nowhere near a two or three element yagi more than half lambda up in the air. Because that is what I’m dreaming of but don’t dare to install. This however is a simple and cheap antenna that can be deployed or taken down in half a minute.

Initial test: JA, VK, PY, USA came back to my CQ in under half an hour. That’s all directions on the compass. So seems to work. Which I didn’t doubt. I’ve made and used many of these for various bands and they always work. But never like a yagi way up there…

PS in reality the antenna is not as skewed as the images suggest…

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