A quality 6-band antenna from Hustler. Will easily handle full legal limit of power on SSB and CW. Built to last, uses thick walled heavy duty aluminium throughout its length and has an extra heavy duty aluminium bracket for mounting. Its uniquely designed traps offer the lowest loss possible and can be further fined tuned for best SWR if required. With a vertical height of only 7.3m it can be safely mounted where other verticals cannot. Radials are optional if antenna mounted at ground level, but are required if an elevated mount is used.
I use a UK Antennas end fed antenna for 10MHz to 80MHz. This wire antenna has tuned coils to shorten the electrical length of the antenna.
To reduce interference and common mode current from entering my shack I have built several 1:1 chokes. These isolate the outside of the coax feeder and inner conductors, reducing transmission of current back into the radio. With chokes placed at both ends of the coax feeder (antenna and shack) I cover off all eventualities. Each choke is constructed of two Fair-rite FT240-43 cores with 11 twinned turns of 18AWG silver plated copper wire by Habia Cable. The minimum choking impedance is 2KΩ at 1.8MHz, and a maximum of above 10kΩ at 20~60MHz. The use of two FT240-43 cores offers a maximum power handling of 2Kw on CW and 3Kw on SSB. This is far in excess of the UK legal permitted transmitted power limit.
At home I have four main antennas covering 50MHz, 70Mhz, 144MHz, 433MHz and 1296MHz. All antennas are manufactured by Antennas-Amplifiers who are based in Serbia.
PA5070-7-3B - Dual band 6 metre 4 metre 7 element antenna
Electrical Specifications of 6m band
Electrical Specifications 4m band
PA144-8-3B - 2 metre 8 Element Wideband Antenna
PA432-14-3B - 70 centimetre 14 Element Wideband Antenna
PA1296-18-1.5RB - 23 cm Rear Mount Yagi Antenna 18 Elements
Diamond X-50N 2 metre & 70 centimetre Vertical
While mobile I operate with the following choice of antennas:
Maldol HMC-4
• TYPE:1/4λ(29/50MHz),1/2λ( Non-radial (144MHz), 5/8λ×2Non-radial (430MHz)
• GAIN:2.15dBi(144MHz), 5.5dBi(430MHz)
• MAX.POWER INPUT:80W F3E(29/50MHz), 120W F3E(144/430MHz)
• OVER LENGTH:1190mm
• WEIGHT:390g
Maldol HFC-80L
• TYPE:1/4λ(3.5MHz)
• MAX.POWER INPUT:120W J3E(3.5MHz)
• OVER LENGTH:2110mm
• WEIGHT:530g
Maldol HFC-40L
• TYPE:1/4λ (7MHz)
• MAX.POWER INPUT:200W J3E(7MHz)
• OVER LENGTH:1870mm
• WEIGHT:330g
Maldol HFC-20L
• TYPE:1/4λ (14MHz)
• MAX.POWER INPUT:250W J3E(14MHz)
• OVER LENGTH:1515mm
• WEIGHT:275g
Maldol HFC-15L
• TYPE:1/4λ (21MHz)
• MAX.POWER INPUT:250W J3E(21MHz)
• OVER LENGTH:1515mm
• WEIGHT:250g
For fun I like to go portable and work the SSB and FM satellites. Weighing about 20 ounces and measuring 37 ½ inches (94 cm) long the Arrow II is a compact solution for working amateur satellites. Made from ¾ inch square aluminium the boom is designed to split for easy transportation.
Both VHF and UHF driver elements are fed from the gamma match, via BNC connectors into a duplexer for single radio/split mode operation.
While no performance figures are given for the Arrow II, typically a 3 element VHF beam will give 5dB gain on 145MHz and a 7 element UHF beam will give 7dB gain on 434MHz.