jake22si
Member
I am looking at buying or building a 200' dipole wire antenna. I would rather not have the feed line out in the open grass area. Is it ok to gently angle the feed line as it comes down to get it to the tree line, 10-20' in?
Dipole feed line angle
- Thread starter jake22si
- Start date
What type of feedline, coax or balanced? Its best to bring the feedline off at a right angle and it doesn't matter much if it goes sideways or down or a combination. Balanced line will have a problem laying on the ground getting to the radio.
What frequencies or bands is this for? a 200ft center fed dipole will work with a good match to 50 ohm coax on roughly 2.34MHz and some higher odd multiples. If fed with balance line it should tune and work any HF band.
jake22si
Member
It was recommended by the local shop mostly hf. It’s 100’ each side of wire and looks like I can keep the feed in the air to my rooftop with a 50’ coax or shorter to the supplied feed, the back yard has a good slope to it. My best routing would run the wire parallel to the power lines along the street but at least 75’ away. If I try and run opposite way the connection to the feed wire would be over 150’ away.
I’m leaning towards finding a good vertical to use first to get going and I will build my wire antenna once I gather some parts. I have a roll of 12g solid copper tracer wire that should work.
I’m leaning towards finding a good vertical to use first to get going and I will build my wire antenna once I gather some parts. I have a roll of 12g solid copper tracer wire that should work.
jake22si
Member
Ftdx10 is the radio I think I will be going with
jake22si
Member
For now I went with a vertical antenna, will try dipole in warmer months
The antenna you describe is not something you want to feed with coax unless it has a balun or transformer to help match it as many tuners will not be able to match it without a transformer and the performance will be all over the place from ok to not ok.
jake22si
Member
Im sorry, I am new and went to go buy the parts for this antenna, and looking at the kit I was going to buy to see how its made, it is ladder line feed G5rv style.
Do you have a tuner that will take ladder line directly? Instead of a random length non resonant 200ft dipole that will not have a good match on any band, why not look at the ZS6BKW, which is a 94ft center fed dipole using a critical length of 450 ohm ladder line then to coax and it provides a good match to 50 ohm coax on most bands 40-10m. You can use it on 80m with a tuner and the match is similar to a G5RV on 80m being about 5:1 to 7:1 VSWR, but it radiates well on 80m. The ZS6BKW will need a good ferrite 1:1 choke balun at the ladder line to coax junction.
jake22si
Member
I think
It is what ham radio outlet recommended for my receiver, or the best they had in stock of that style. When I looked in the package to see how it was made it looks like the ladder is converted to a pl259 fitting. I have a yaesu ftdx-10. I am planning on building my own antenna in spring, I have a vertical for now.
As prcguy states, you want the feed to depart perpendicular to the antenna. Nothing wrong with ladder, but it will have to terminate into a balanced input tuner or balun to coax.
This may take a little tweaking as the internanl AT has limits that it will tune to.
Might work fine on 80, 40, 20, but tune fail on other bands.
This may take a little tweaking as the internanl AT has limits that it will tune to.
Might work fine on 80, 40, 20, but tune fail on other bands.
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