Hamstick dipoles?

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hbscanner1

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Hi all! Studying for gen license, have a Yaesu 450D, and working on antennae which wife does NOT want longwire or tall vertical antennaes, and want to minimize any lead in cables. Question, how does using hamstick antennaes screwed in with MFJ dipole screw on adapter? If I did this,could I then put this on a very small pole on our room balcony? any need to attache base to a metal frame(like car, using that for 1/4 wave), and/or any need for counterpoise? or just(hopefully) placing coax between antennae and rig, and good to go? Appreciate all your wisdom! thanks!!!
 

WA0CBW

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This will work but you will find it has a very narrow bandwidth. Since it is a dipole you don't need a ground plane or counterpoise. You may find that using an insulated mast will (or at least a few feet at the antenna end) make it easier to tune. A balun at the antenna may also help.
BB
 

prcguy

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In my experience Hamstick dipoles can work ok on 20m and up but on 40m and below forget it. They are too small to have much efficiency on the lower bands and will be very close to the ground causing more problems.
 

N9PBD

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You might want to look at using a magnetic loop antenna, rather than a hamstick dipole. They are very narrow banded, but you can tune them across a relatively wide swath of frequencies. Google magnetic loop and see what you find. I use the MFJ-1788, 15m to 40m loop myself and have pretty good success with it. It isn't cheap ($500), but it's small, only 36" in diameter, and you can place it relatively close to the ground without much impact. Another benefit of loop antennas is the ability to rotate it to null out local noise. I can drop the RF hash from my neighbor's LED landscape lights several S-units by rotating my loop.

Anyway, just another idea for a small antenna for small spaces. Like all small antennas, it's a compromise, but it can get you on the air when you don't have other options.

73, Greg
 

edweirdFL

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I have a pair of Hamsticks for 40m and a pair for 20m.

I use them most often one at a time on a mag mount while my car is parked. I've had OK results like this.

I have tried using them in pairs as horizontal dipoles on top of a tripod mounted 18 foot tall mast. My experience is that running wires down from that configuration in an inverted V configuration works better than Hamsticks, and doesn't take that much longer to setup. It takes more space and wouldn't work on most balconys.

Using an antenna analyzer I could tune the 20m Hamsticks for a low SWR across all of the General class phone section of the band. With the 40m Hamsticks I tuned them to cover part of the General class phone section and really need to use my tuner for the other part of the band.

For HF, "higher and more wire" seems to work better in general. If that is at odds with your living arrangements, perhaps mobile or portable operation might allow for better results.
 

hbscanner1

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thanks for all the wisdom out there!!! Due to difficulties in "lobbying" my wife for more visible aerials, will most likely settle for 2 hamsticks screwed onto MFJ di[pole adapter, and lay it on our balcony or with short pole to make it just above height of balcony wall. Will try without balun first, but last question??? With the built in antennae tuner in the Yaesu 450D, might there be a need to purchase an external one too, or just see how it goes. After license is obtained, will most likely be using 20 meters on up, and possibly purchasing 40 meter hamsticks if going lower in frequency. Appreciate all your help!!!!!!!
 

prcguy

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You should be able to tune a Hamstick dipole to within a 3:1 match or something that a built in tuner can handle. A good choke balun at the feedpoint will help keep RF off the coax and make tuning more stable.




thanks for all the wisdom out there!!! Due to difficulties in "lobbying" my wife for more visible aerials, will most likely settle for 2 hamsticks screwed onto MFJ di[pole adapter, and lay it on our balcony or with short pole to make it just above height of balcony wall. Will try without balun first, but last question??? With the built in antennae tuner in the Yaesu 450D, might there be a need to purchase an external one too, or just see how it goes. After license is obtained, will most likely be using 20 meters on up, and possibly purchasing 40 meter hamsticks if going lower in frequency. Appreciate all your help!!!!!!!
 

zz0468

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As prcguy said, below 20 meters, those hamstick dipoles just don't work well. Above 20 meters, they're no better than a mobile antenna. That's what they are.

A wire dipole, carefully designed, and fed with balanced line can be made almost invisible. And it would work a whole lot better.
 

bharvey2

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thanks for all the wisdom out there!!! Due to difficulties in "lobbying" my wife for more visible aerials, will most likely settle for 2 hamsticks screwed onto MFJ di[pole adapter, and lay it on our balcony or with short pole to make it just above height of balcony wall. Will try without balun first, but last question??? With the built in antennae tuner in the Yaesu 450D, might there be a need to purchase an external one too, or just see how it goes. After license is obtained, will most likely be using 20 meters on up, and possibly purchasing 40 meter hamsticks if going lower in frequency. Appreciate all your help!!!!!!!

I've used the exact same setup, a Yaesu FT450D and hamstick dipoles. On 20 meters, you should be fine with the internal tuner once you properly adjust the dipole lengths. I have an external tuner as well but can get by with no tuner (external or internal) and will be under 2:1 SWR across the General phone portion of the band.

40 meters is a different story. As was pointed out above, hamsticks are not very inefficient in that band and you'll only be able to tune them for a small portion of the band anyway. At 40 meters and below, they're not worth the frustration.

As far as a balun goes, you can get by without one with the hamsticks but I get a little better response from my analyzer with a 1:1 balun than without.
 

hbscanner1

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Hopefully last question RE Hamstick antennaes?

I put up mssg last week RE hamstick dipole antennaes for home use; thank you all for replies!!

Realize that with 2 hamsticks for 20 m(using an MFJ dipole mount), it would be over 14 feet in length. I spoke to someone at Gigaparts and he said that you could use one hamstick, mount it on a metal cookiesheet( to mimic the car effects), and could try that. Any thoughts on that? and if indeed the cookiesheet was the "car", then no need for any grounding/radials/counterpoise? Wish I were living in a home with bigger yard and wife not as cognizant of wires/antennaes jutting out in any direction for HF operation!!!! 2 meters and 440 no sweat!! thanks in advance for your all wisdom!!!
 

Golay

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Could work but ...

I put up mssg last week RE hamstick dipole antennaes for home use; thank you all for replies!!

Realize that with 2 hamsticks for 20 m(using an MFJ dipole mount), it would be over 14 feet in length. I spoke to someone at Gigaparts and he said that you could use one hamstick, mount it on a metal cookiesheet( to mimic the car effects), and could try that. Any thoughts on that? and if indeed the cookiesheet was the "car", then no need for any grounding/radials/counterpoise? Wish I were living in a home with bigger yard and wife not as cognizant of wires/antennaes jutting out in any direction for HF operation!!!! 2 meters and 440 no sweat!! thanks in advance for your all wisdom!!!

If you go the cookie sheet route, you should run quarter wave+5% radials off the cookie sheet. Unless you can find a cookie sheet the size of a car.

But the cookie sheet gives you a vertical antenna. If it was me, I'd try to stick with the 2 ham sticks and the dipole mount if you can go horizontal. I believe you're going to be more effective and less noisy on the flat side, than being vertical with the cookie sheet.
 

zz0468

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In mobile operation, the car isn't the counterpoise for the antenna, it's a capacitor plate for capacitive coupling to ground. A cookie sheet is probably much too small to capacitively couple to ground, so I would discount that idea.

I still think a small diameter wire antenna will perform better, and be harder to here.
 

hbscanner1

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Question about tuning hamstick dipole?

Hey all, appreciate your help RE my previous question about hamsticks for 20 meters

Now, finally wired my Yaesu 450 D to ground and hamstick dipole, and trying the built-in tuner first before receiving an MFJ 939Y ext tuner. My question, I installed both whips about 4" into the ferule and then screwed it into the lower fiberglass section, according to directions, and the 450D ant tuner could not tune it! For the heck of it, I removed the whip on one hamstick and just manipulated the whip length on the remaining hamstick, and viola'! the 450 D tuner tuned it! I am waiting to receive an SWR meter to see exactly where the antennae set up falls on the meter. I am a new general class, and cannot fathom why, with removing the whip on one and leaving the other in place, the tuner can resonance with supposedly < 1:3 ratio.
Any thoughts to offer? thanks in advance!
Harry KM6 SQB
 

prcguy

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Could be a number of things causing it. With one whip out, that antenna is effectively out of the circuit on 20m and the active whip is working against the coax as a counterpoise. It could be when both whips are in it puts the resonant point and impedance out of range for your internal tuner.

I would first tune one whip to resonance by itself against the coax counterpoise, then remove it and tune the other whip under the exact same conditions. Then you have a starting point and when both antennas are installed you can move both whips the same amount for future tuning.

I would also use a good choke balun right at the feedpoint of the whips to isolate the feedline from the antenna and minimize interaction.


Hey all, appreciate your help RE my previous question about hamsticks for 20 meters

Now, finally wired my Yaesu 450 D to ground and hamstick dipole, and trying the built-in tuner first before receiving an MFJ 939Y ext tuner. My question, I installed both whips about 4" into the ferule and then screwed it into the lower fiberglass section, according to directions, and the 450D ant tuner could not tune it! For the heck of it, I removed the whip on one hamstick and just manipulated the whip length on the remaining hamstick, and viola'! the 450 D tuner tuned it! I am waiting to receive an SWR meter to see exactly where the antennae set up falls on the meter. I am a new general class, and cannot fathom why, with removing the whip on one and leaving the other in place, the tuner can resonance with supposedly < 1:3 ratio.
Any thoughts to offer? thanks in advance!
Harry KM6 SQB
 

TheSpaceMann

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I've had good luck with Hamstick dipoles on a balcony for 20, 17 and 10 meters! I also had good luck with an Ultimax-100 end fed. :)
 

bharvey2

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At some point (I can't remember what length and it varies from Hamstick model to Hamstick model) the inside end of the whip can enter into the coil wrapped in the fiberglass portion of the antenna. (You go from a air core to iron core) and this can wreak havoc with your ability to tune the antennas. I've only used newer ones but have read that you can damage the winding, at least on older Hamsticks by running the whip too far into the fiberglass portion

Also, the dipole elevation can affect the tuning / SWR as well. I've used the Hamstick dipole on 20 meters quite a bit and recall that I had to do some fiddling to the the dipole length to get it correct. One reading at adjustment level and another at operation level.

Lastly, make note of the dipole mounting assembly. Depending upon the brand, some keep both Hamsticks isolated from the mounting assembly while others don't. If you use one without the isolation, you're mast becomes part of the the antenna and can through off your tuning.
 

hbscanner1

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hamstick dipole

thanks for comments! To "TheSpaceMan", you shared that the hamstick dipoles have worked well for you, how did you tune the antennaes and/or any probs doing this? Admittedly, I have no stand alone SWR yet(one on order from MFJ), and just going by the antenna tuner built in into the 450D. The ant tuner tunes well with only one hamstick installed with its whip and the other hamstick inserted without the whip(so is hollow). Someone suggested getting a balun to help isolate the coax and the assembly and thus minimize inteference with auto ant tuning, and I will most likely get that. Any other suggestions would help.... alas, this radio is keeping me busy after I do my "regular" work in the am! thanks in advance!!!
 
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