Amateur Radio Antennas

Out in the Country

Living out in the country, the space constraints many Amateur Radio Operators face are minimal, providing that you can convince the chief financial officer of your household that it is a necessary and critical expense on the one hand, and the chief esthetics officer of your household that masts, towers and beams really are attractive.

Given that you can achieve some degree of agreement on these issues, you can actually get some sort of antenna on the air.

Many erroneously seem to think that great big antennas and kilowatts of transmitter power are necessary. Apparently, this comes from Air Force thinking. Somehow, the Navy did get by with transmitters ranging from 100-1000 watts output, using relatively simple 35-foot whip antennas and they could communicate around the world most of the time. (Yes, they use satellite phones now days, but 40+ years ago...)

AA3LS Antenna Farm

I tried unsuccessfully to convince the tax assessment folks that our land is primarly agricultural, but they couldn't find "antenna farm" in their books!

• 80-meter dipole center up 55 feet, and ends up 30 feet, wire axis oriented NW/SE, so the main lobes on 80-meters are NE/SW, more or less. This antenna can be loaded on all HF bands by the internal automatic tuner in the TS-850S/AT.
• HF 5-band mini-beam, Cushcraft MA5B, up 60 feet.
• HF 5-band vertical, Cushcraft R7, base up 65 feet.
• Self Supporting tower for this collection
• VHF/UHF dual band, AR270, up 35 feet (should be higher, but tower mounting would require another 120 feet of feedline.
• Microwave - Out here in the boondocks, TV reception would be very poor, except for the Dish Network Superdish
• There are higher frequency antennas, but most people call them telescopes!

  More to come later.