building my 1st dipole for 10 meters

[DaveJacobsen]

New to hf (non cb) and got my license; plan on getting a used 10 meter radio.

I currently have a vertical dipole for my cb and plan on making a horizontal for 10 meters. I have read a bunch on dipoles and seems I can also make a horizontal for cb on the same antenna.
What I can't find is some "how do these methods compare"

1) make the longer wavelength dipole on top, then spaced evenly below it the shorter length (repeat)
2) use coils to load the dipole for more than one wavelength
3) use an antenna tuner for one or the other. (I haven't found anything that says if it's better to use an antenna for the shorter wavelength & antenna tuner to work with the longer or visa versa)

Is one much better than the other? (if they are all about the same, using the tuner or two lengths seem easiest) From what I read it seems the antenna tuner method is least desirable... It gets different I add in 12 or go uhf/vhf later where line lengths will become a space issue. I borrowed my antenna mount from another person but basically it balances the two antennas on the rotor, and uses pvc to keep the wire taught inside the pvc... The downside to this is that I can't easily route two wires in the pvc and keep them spaced apart. -- so coils may be easier for me, if I can understand them better.

2nd part of this; for a 200-300 watt rig, what size wire should I use? I have a bunch of 14g solid/insulated wire...

And now for two of the big questions.
1) My vertical has a balun (I don't know who's it is; but it is not an air choke) - my understanding is I needed it because the antenna is 75 ohms (give or take) and my feedline/transceiver is 50ohms. Will the same balun work for 10 meters or are they band specific? Are baluns easy to make? I recall it seemed like a core with the wires from coax running around it almost in a upside down/mixed way so the flows ended up reversing direction at one point... but it's been years since I looked at it,but it looked like the winding was specific/purposeful and not obvious to me)

2) Since I plan on putting a horizontal up there; I would like to turn it. The rotor I have has the option of running power up the coax; but the guy I bought it from said if I used the coax for power I shouldn't have baluns as the two will not play well together. True?

Thanks for any advice. (brand new to ham, only ever played with cb for skip and manually rotated my antenna for both polarization and direction -- no amps, no fancy gadgets or annoying noise-toys; so I am looking forward to modernizing a bit and seeing how far I can go with a little more power)

 

[jassing]

I have a pair of dipoles balanced on a rotor (one horizontal the other vertical with a switch to choose between the two) -- They are enclosed in pvc pipe. (I have been told this may degrade performance, enclosing it; but so far, it's working well).
I don't think you could get away with running two lines for two bands if your pvc is less than 1"; you need to keep them spaced and (I think this is the more important bit) keep them from twisting.
I would use coils to make it resonant on 2 bands -- I forget what it's called, but that's probably your best bet.
I run 450watt on 14g; and it works but it does warm up.
You don't need a balun unless you need a balun. Don't automatically add one.
As for the tuner, I think you would want to build the longer antenna and use a tuner for smaller wavelength ...

I am a sub-novice, so you should google around to be sure -- best thing to do is experiment!

 

[paulears]

Personally, with 10m and 11m being so close, the extra antenna length is pretty small. I'd use a tuner if the VSWR was high, and just use the same antenna, or maybe rig the horizontal dipole in your preferred take-off direction and maybe have a switch to select vertical/horizontal. Best of both worlds?