Your first Amateur radio antenna. Or the antenna you hide in your attic, because of the coming Zombie invasion of course. Whatever your reason for having a ham radio wire antenna, whether its your wife, neighbors, HOA ( I hate those), small yard, your renting, your in an apartment or safety reasons or any other reason. Rejoice its a good choice.
The all time favorite Ham Radio wire antenna is the half-wavelength, center-fed, dipole. It is easy to build and it performs adequately. The dipole is the reference used to measure the performance of the other antennas. It's the base line. The dipole is a great reference point for amateur radio because you can actually build one (yes you can). And on some of the lower bands, most amateur radio operators will be using these. So you don't have to worry about pile-ups your never going to be able to break. There is also less competition on these bands since most everyone is using the same type of antenna as you... A wire. As well as the lower bands although very noisy at times are very forgiving regarding antennas, so a dipole antenna works just great. Unlike on the upper UHF bands where you need a 11 element plus yagi just to hear anything at any decent distance.
Ham Radio Wire Antennas ....or....Copper Wire Antennas...have great benefits:
They are inexpensive to build and make. or they're dozens of pre-made designs built by other amateur operators to choose from.
They are simple to put up in the air. (find a tree and your good to go).
Or if your still worried about Zombies, you can put one in your attic.
You can even really cheap out and feed them with inexpensive feed line...like ladder line! Wow what could be better?
Wire antennas strung low around your house often create RF interference and can result in RF at your radio shack, on your TV, in your computer speakers, or even better your neighbors speakers.
The problem is this, the feed line, as well as everything connected it becomes part of the RF radiating system. Many people think that just because you have a 1/2 wave dipole you will be immune to this type of interference. They also are under the misconception that changing the feed line to some mysterious secret length, or use another type of feed line these problems will be eliminated. They won't. This problem usually is worse with a End-Fed antenna or other antenna that the manufacturer told you doesn't need a counterpoise. Well I can tell you that a counterpoise will be made, whether you know it or not. Something will be used as the counterpoise, most likely its going to be the feedline. And where does your feedline go....into your shack.
With any RF coming into your shack you will also have increased noise and static levels.
So how can you stop the mass hysteria of chasing RF and interference (you'll never quite find) around your home. There are a couple of things that I would do in my opinion. One: Move the antenna and the feed system as far away as possible away from your house. This is super important. Anytime you are bringing wires that emit RF close to your house you are just asking for trouble. Dont do it, you'll have less noise and less interference in your home if you keep your entire antenna system no matter what it is, AWAY from your house.
2, 3 and 4 , etc. Use a good grounding system outside. All of your coax from various antennas you might have should to be connected to a single ground point. With a 8 foot long ground rod buried next to and attached to where your coax comes in. Use a lightning arrestor on your coax outside where you are grounded, USE A CURRENT CHOKE at the connection to any antenna you own, and ANOTHER 1-1 CHOKE before the feedline gets into the house. You want to keep out any RF before it gets into your house. You know how some frustrating days you just want to choke something, well take it out on your coax and choke it before it gets into your house. Copper Wires and Circuit boards are soulmates, they want to be together. The RF leaving your non resonant low hung, next to your house wire antenna is looking for a Circuit board to excite, this is most likely going to be in some of your electronics or more likely your neighbors. If you are using a linear amplifier under these conditions, without necessary precautions you are asking for trouble.
If you are working the lower bands, you do not need alot of power anyway. Mother Nature will take care of you there, and even might lift up her skirt and give you a DX peek a boo every now and then on 160/80 meters, even with your 100 watts and a shortened dipole. Again if you decide to use a un choked wire antenna with no counterpoise and 1500+ watts of power close to your house, your career as an amateur radio operator will be short or.....at the very least expensive from the eventual large FCC fine you'll be paying or the nonsense you will have to deal with from your local town board.
I realize it seems I am going off on ham radio wire antennas here, but to be honest you should use these practices on any antenna system you have, and you and your wife and neighbors will be alot happier, you never know you might just be invited to their block party even with the 7 element 20 meter Yagi 50 feet above your roof.
First Things First. Lets learn the basics:
HAM RADIO WIRE ANTENNAS
All antennas have two parts to them. One side is the more prominent side that most amateur radio guys are concerned about. This is the visible side of the antenna, meaning for a Vertical this is the part that goes straight up, for a End-Fed antenna this is the part that is the long wire that you can see. The rest of the antenna you usually don't concern yourself about, this is a mistake.
All antennas must be balanced to work at their utmost efficiency. Let's look at a dipole, there are two sides to it, they are identical in length, the antenna has EQUAL CURRENT flowing from one side to the other. It is Balanced. The antenna is efficient, the pattern will be predictable, the SWR will be stable.
Now for antennas such as Verticals( Antron 99's & Imax 2000 types) and End-Fed wires do not have another visible side to them. However there is another side to them. In this case if you do not ground them, the other side of the antenna to make the current equal on both sides is the COAX. The antenna will use whatever is available to balance the current flowing into it. Sometimes this is not so obvious. Use a metal mast? Or some other metal structure to hold your antenna up? You just created a current path that will in effect become the other missing part of your antenna system. This structure will create what is known as a bad word in ham radio circles: COMMON MODE.
So what can you do about this. Well if you have a vertical or similar vertical to the Imax's/Antron's of the world, Do nothing. Realize that there is common mode flowing on the outside of your coax, until the current between the vertical section of your antenna and the coax is balanced. Since there is current flowing on the coax you can do a few things to make your vertical work better. Keep the coax as straight as possible and away from your house, mount your antenna away from your house on a suitable pole or mast and run the coax straight down. Do NOT let the coax make circles or turns or bends near the feedpoint. you want it straight and away from your house. Remember it is now a part of your antenna system, make sure it looks like the vertical section (straight) for at least 1/2 a wavelength and your beloved vertical will work fine.
Ever notice in the CB radio days LIDS would be mentioning how they needed to cut their coax to a certain length to get the SWR in line?? Thats because they knew nothing about how antennas worked and were trying to use a short term bandaid to fix the problem. This does not fix the problem and what the antenna was trying to tell you was that you have common mode flowing down your coax. Don't be a LID. Now you know.
What about End-Fed antennas? Yes they are also using your coax to be the other side of your antenna. And thats okay. Just be aware of that and mount them far from your house and as high as possible and let the coax do it's job, so keep it straight as possible for as long as possible to not effect the radiation pattern too terribly. If you mounted your End-fed feedpoint near your house or shack window, and have a bunch of coax rolled up or running a short distance to your rig guess what? Your gonna have common mode issues, your gonna pick up noise from your house and in general the antenna will not perform as if it was mounted far from your house with a 1/2 wavength of coax minimally running straight away from it.
All current flowing into the antenna's feedpoint end must be the same on one side by the same amount of current flowing into a ground or counterpoise on the other side.
This is the basics of how ALL antennas work, without this you hear nothing, it would be like disconnecting the shield of your coax otherwise. This always applies, no matter your LID friends have told you. So keep this in mind when using antennas like J-Poles and End-Fed Verticals and Wires.
Even if your beloved vertical has a counterpoise or some radials this will certainly help, but most times these are shortened or not entirely 100% efficient. Run your coax straight down away from the antenna. HMMMM I know what some of you are thinking, use a choke. If your antenna already from the factory comes with radials or a counterpoise, such as a dipole or off-center fed or fan dipole....THEN YES a choke is fine because you already have a counterpoise built into your antenna. (two sides). But if you do not have a built in counterpoise (Antron 99's, Imax 2000's, End Fed wires, etc.) Do not use a choke, because your affecting the other side of the antenna, which is trying to balance itself so current can flow properly.
OK off my soapbox.......What is a half wave dipole antenna? How do you design a loop antenna? What is an Off Center fed Dipole? Lets find out.
As mentioned on another page, there are at least 140 varieties of wire antennas and probably dozens more then that. I am not going to go through them all, only the ones I personally have experience with, like everything else on this WA2OOO.com website. And I don't have the room.
1. The Dipole Antenna........... works very well, easy to construct and install, has a figure 8 pattern in books, but closer to omni directional in reality, especially if its not very high. I recommend it highly as a wire antenna. A million words and pages have been devoted to this antenna, so I dont want to repeat others here. This is a monoband antenna. Best fed with coax, although you could use ladder-line which will transform the impedance from 75 ohms into who knows what and you'll be chasing mysterious SWR demons forever if your into that. Many people assume mistakenly that just because you might have a 20 meter dipole, you can now get all the bands without much tuning. This is an error. Straight dipoles are meant to be SINGLE band antennas. You make think with your slick tuner that you can get alot of other bands with it, but it will be terribly inefficient on those bands. If you want to get more bands, buy or make a different wire antenna. There is a dipole antenna calculator at the end of this page, but if your lazy this will give you a head start. (this is an antenna you can easily make with a bunch of wire from home depot and a 1-1 balun, or you can buy them, store bought ones are usually too long and you may have to cut them some)
1A. The Double Bazooka......... WOW, sounds very impressive doesn't it? You want one of these right! Well maybe but probably not. What is a Double Bazooka Antenna? It's basically a dipole antenna but instead of using wire for the two sides of the dipole it uses coax. Thats right instead of wire you use cheap RG8X or RG58 or some other cheap smaller diameter coax and you litterally make a dipole with it. So why bother? Well Bazooka freaks will tell you that this antenna has lower noise and wider bandwidth than a straight dipole. Construction: The first part of this bazooka antenna out from the feedpoint consists of a 1/4 wave shorted stub made of coax. The second part is the wire at the end of each branch. The coax shield and the wire tips operate as a normal 1/2 dipole. A shorted stub means at the end of the coax the shield and the center conductor are connected, and from that point it's just wire. The wider bandwidth claim is because if you use RG8 coax which is thicker, you would indeed have a wider bandwidth. ( you could just make a dipole also out of thicker wire, and you'd have wider bandwith as well). Problem is RG8 coax is Very heavy to hang among trees or anyplace else, in a horizontal dipole fashion, so you would need 3 strong supports to hold the antenna horizontal. Because of this no one builds or uses the fatter coax, they use cheap coax like RG58, which is Not any thicker than a normal wire dipole, so the bandwidth is not really any greater. So scratch that claim. The other claim is lower noise. When someone can show me why this antenna should have lower noise than a normal dipole, then I'll believe it! It doesn't make any sense. You are basically building a dipole with a thicker first half which then tapers down to a normal wire half way though the element. And WHY would this noise be lower??? So that claim is virtually baseless in my opinion. Another thing that is usually skipped over, is the exact length of the thicker section (shorted stub of coax) is trial and error. In other words in order to get a low SWR on the exact frequency you plan on using it on, your gonna be cutting up a lot of coax, just to make it work properly. IMO...... Buy a normal dipole for the band you want, and if your a bit off use a tuner. If you insist on having a "Double Bazooka" antenna, then please buy one already made. Good luck hanging it in a tree. All the Best. Take Care.
2. The Inverted V....sounds sexy and looks exotic doesn't it? Sorry its just a half wave dipole antenna with the ends (legs) sloping down. Same decent performance as above but even more omni directional. Depending upon the angle of the "V" legs the Inverted V antenna will be 2 - 6% longer then the standard dipole. The calculator in the link will show you by how much. Best thing about it is you only need one support up high to make it work. This is a single band antenna just like the horizontal dipole. Sure you could make a really long random length wire one and use a tuner in the shack, in that case you'll be able to get on some more bands, but there are better antennas for that below. (this is an antenna you can make and probably should because the resonant point changes for each installation and with angle of the legs)
3. The Loop antenna ( personal fave )... its actually just a one element Cubical Quad. A full wavelength wire bent into the shape of a loop ( delta or square ), you'll enjoy lower noise and better gain then the dipole above. ( just like the cubical quad versus yagi ). Its litterally the same thing, just one element. Usually built as a single band antenna. Can be built for Vertical or Horizontal radiation just like a Quad. Sometimes people call this a Skywire loop antenna, so check if it s bigger then a full wavelength or not. It can be fed with coax and a 2 - 1 balun or use a section of 75 OHM coax to match it. But really its not that hard to get into the wire length ballpark you'll need. For example 40 meters is not only a ham radio band, its also the length of a 1 wavelength loop at those frequencys. How long is 40 meters? Well 1 meter is 3.28 feet long, so 40 meters is 40 X 3.28 = 131.2 feet long. Or you can do 1005/frequency. However thats a rough guide as the wire size, covered or uncovered and a bunch of other things come into practice. If you want to be more precise, as I am sure you would be, check the wire antenna calculator link I have created at the bottom of this page. As with all loops they are very versatile, you can feed it like below for vertical polarization, making it a good DX antenna, feed it horizontally, even place the whole loop horizontal and feed it anywhere you'd like! In a corner, in the middle of a wire, or 1/4 of the way up a wire as shown below. Try a loop antenna if you get a chance and have the space & supports. You WILL like it. (you can buy these antennas, but I much prefer making them, because the wire length is not exactly always the same, depending upon your frequency choice, and the balun might come in at 2-1 to 2.5-1, some even wind up using a 4 -1 balun)
4.The End-Fed long wire or multiples of 1/2 wave length wire. Also known as the (EFHW antenna)...... They do work, not as good as a loop antenna or a dipole antenna, but sometimes this is the only alternative you can run. Make sure you read the RF interference section above at least 10 times before installing one. Okay maybe twice. These are used alot during club station stuff and by portable operators on mini expeditions. What could be simpler? The pattern of these is difficult to imagine because depending on what band you are on the pattern could be similar to a dipole (80/40 meters) or on the higher bands ( 10-15 meters) have many individual lobes of radiation. In general they tend to have the highest radiation pattern off of the ends, unlike the center fed dipole which is the opposite. The Germans figured this out in 1909, when this antenna was called the "Zeppelin" antenna. The further you try to feed a wire farther away from the center of two wires, the impedance will get higher, by the time you get to a End-Fed your looking at a 49 - 1 balun to match to your coax, depending upon the thickness of your wire. (you can make these easily, its just a length of wire and a balun. Try to make the antenna as long as possible like 130 feet long and you'll have decent results on 80-10 meters.) On the higher bands, depending upon which direction you have it pointed at, you can see some gain in that direction, and some lower gain also in the opposite direction. In other words if your antenna is laid out, so it is fed here at the east and the rest of the wire is west facing, you will have most of your gain facing west, but you will also have some facing east as well. Broadside to the wire is alot of small lobes, if some station happens to be in a good lobe your fine, if not you won't hear him. Again this occurs only on the upper bands, for 10-15 meters. Opposite pattern of the center fed dipole. And not as broad or wide a pattern as a dipole. Since you only have one support necessary for the balun, get this antenna high in a tree, and stretch the 130 foot wire far out in the open and attach to another high point of a tree, and the antenna will work very well.
5. The Multiband dipole antenna.AKA Fan Dipole.. same as the dipole with other bands (lengths of wire) attached to the feed point, again a Choke is fine here. SWR not always perfect as advertised. The good news is you can cut the individual dipole lengths depending upon where you hang out on each band. So to get it to have the lowest SWR where you hang out on each band requires some length adjusting. Once that's done your set for life. Unless you get kicked off your favorite net or frequency for some reason. Keep it as high up and as far away from anything else as possible. Feed with coax. Depending upon the guy who makes it, they work either very good, or fair at best. Check reviews on these on eham.net ( you usually buy these outright, and let someone else deal with the wire mess of trying to build it). They do work well when properly installed. Stretching it out so that wires to do not cross each other and remain straight can be annoying, so it has to be pulled relatively tight at the ends to work as advertised. Works best NOT used in trees but on separate pole supports on your property. Best horizontal all the way across but the inverted V configuration is fine.
6. The G5VR antenna...very popular...cheap... not as efficient as a multiband dipole antenna or other multiband antennas but gets you on all the bands, with fair performance. SWR also not always as predicted. Lots of good ones for sale and even more poor ones for sale. Its generally 51 feet a side or 102 feet, and fed in the center like a dipole except that its fed by (ladderline) twinlead of 29-35 feet. Better in my opinion if fed with 50 or even better 75 ohm coax. This is an antenna that can really make you grind your teeth at night. But its Cheap ! Not really a full 10-80 multiband antenna, but often sold as such. Since this is usually the first antenna a new General class guy gets his hands on, its usually run low and through trees, bushes, around buildings etc. And partly because of that it works like crap. This changes when the seasoned amateur then decides to put his next antenna away from his house, away from trees and buildings, and it works much better. ( like all antennas do ). He then announces the G5VR was junk! When in fact if it was also put in the clear, it would have worked much better. I am not saying by any means that a G5RV is a world beater....its not ...this is a case of you get what you pay for. (these are usually antennas you buy and not build, unless you are a real gluton for punishment.)
7. The OCFD ( Off Center Fed Dipole ) ... decent SWR on all bands, decent performance on lower bands, lots of little lobes on higher bands, the guy directly south of you might be "S9" while the guy 10 degrees west of him might be "S4". somewhat hard to predict the radiation pattern (sorry Eznec) but a good alternative to the single band dipole antenna if you prefer. This antenna is usually fed 1/3 from the end, in other words its a 1/3 wire lenght, feed point, followed by 2/3 lenght of wire. The longer the total wire the better. However I do like these antennas, they work almost as good as a mono-band dipole would. Almost but not quite. BUT your on most of the bands with good SWR. In other words Less frustrating then many other types of wire antennas. Most popular already built models are 135 feet long. ( you can build or buy these, they are as simple as a straight dipole antenna, just with the feed point moved to a 1/3 - 2/3 arrangement instead of 50-50 like a dipole. Balun will be a 4-1.) They are similar to the end-fed antenna, only with the feedpoint not moved all the way to the end, because of this the radiation pattern is more figure 8 "dipole like" than the end-fed antenna on most bands. Although the pattern can be a bit more predictable than an end fed, you need to support the 1/3 section where the balun is up high in the air, and like a dipole have the wires stretched out horizontal if you can to 2 other supports or tree limbs. So this antenna requires more thought as to where you can stick it in your yard. But get it up as high as possible on all ends, and you'll be happy with it as it covers 80-10 meters for the long version, mostly without a tuner.
8. The Carolina Windom... very similar to the OCFD, except it purposely uses the (22 feet or so) feed line for vertical radiation. ( Uh Oh ). works decent but it needs a choke after the 22 feet of vertical wire. It also needs precise measurements of everything to get the SWR right where you want it. Sort of an old school antenna, but still somewhat popular. There are lots of similar versions of these, using slightly different wire lengths, all claiming to be the "improved version". As of 2019 I think top manufacturer of these has retired. You can still find some versions online. Its best to buy this antenna. It has to be mounted high like the OCFD to work decent.
9. The Skywire Loop Antenna.. similar to the regular loop antenna, just a big large random length of wire in the shape of a loop running either as high as possible or low along the ground for the lower bands. It needs a good tuner at the shack to tune this bad boy. That being said there is alot of wire out there (sometimes 600+ feet) of recieving Capture Area, and to Transmit from. It works well. if you have 3 or 4 big towers and attach it to each leg of the towers someplace....you have yourself a butt kicking omni directional antenna. Even the lower in height ones work pretty good. Tune Tune Tune for any band you would like. Mostly used on lower bands 80 - 160. Also made as just one big ole random length of wire cut into 1/4"s. ( this is an experimenters antenna, that you build, find a Balun that will transform you close to 50 ohms on the band you like, and you'll be able to work a couple of multiples of the next higher bands ). Because of the loop structure it tends to be a lower noise antenna, except if your looking for thunderstorms. It will hear them a 1000 miles away. But other than that not alot of static generally. Perfect for 160 meters and Good for NVIS on 80 meters.
10. The "I don't care what you say I'm throwing this wire out the window" antenna. Listen enjoy yourself and the bands, watch the RF in the shack, and if QRP is your thing then more power to you. It makes no difference to me what you use, nor should it bother you. Just enjoy the amateur bands. I would comment that throwing a random length of wire out the window will work, but its more a matter of luck then having good practice.
My experience is with most of these. You will not get much better performance then the Half wave Dipole Antenna or Loop antenna. The one exception is a Extended Double Zepp. (this is a 5/8's wave dipole instead of a half wave dipole antenna, but it requires ladder line and a balun and a tuner to work). Its Big and a pain in the ass, so I didn't included it above, besides I hate ladder line. But if you want a bit more DB gain then a dipole antenna particularily in the vertical configuration on 10 meters especially, this antenna works well. As mentioned on here and on other pages, I am not a fan of ladder line. All antennas fed with ladder line NEED a tuner to be used with them on every band. Ever hear of a symmetrical matchbox tuner? I didn't think so. Well thats what you need to tune ladder line fed antennas properly. All tuners made today are asymmetrical, meaning they are inefficient when used with ladder line. And you will have more loss then when using coax in most instances. Except where your coax (lmr 400 type) run is a long one, like over 250 feet in length. Use better coax and this loss disappears. OK. Back to the antennas I mentioned above:
I personally think these and mono-band dipoles in general will be the top performers. I have modeled and used many other types ( Rhombics, Double Zepps, Slopers, Doublets, EDZ's,etc. ) and like the crazy Yagi antenna designs that you can come up with, there are hundreds more complicated designs with wire antennas. Now I just dont think they are worth the time and the increase in gain versus one of the above. Most of them are just too big for the average yard. You'll find yourself trying to build letter "H's" and letter "L's", "Z's" etc out of wire and then trying to support them with makeshift fiberglass poles or similar, until your almost finished, and then you wife yells out the window "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? GET RID OF THAT MONSTROSITY" If you have acreas of space then by all means experiment. For others who may disagree with the loop antenna and the dipole antenna mostly being the top performers I can hear it now "I built a capacitive loaded, ladder line fed, no balun, collinear hentenna, that blew away my friends 6 element yagi on a 75 foot tower".
Number one . No you didn't, Number two . Okay great, Are there other wire antennas that can give you good SWR, Multiband capability, and High Gain in one direction. Yes. Even multi-element wire antennas! But I am not building them, nor will I in the future, I'm just not into torture. But you can if you'd like and I wish you good luck and would love to hear of your real results! To me its the simpler the better.
So here's all the dimensions you need to build a wire antenna. Wire_Antenna_Calculator
There is a great wire antenna adjustment webpage here, in case your calculations are off a bit. Wire_Antenna_Adjustment
Like I said if you want to spend several lifetimes building wire antennas,
and need to know every wire antenna version ever made.......then knock yourself out here : A Zillion Wire Antennas
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