You are correct. However, that may not be convenient for mobile installation. You will think this bizarre. I set up a dual band antenna with a driven 259 centimetre antenna for 11 meter and 10 meter. The driven 259 centimetre antenna shares the same grounded bracket with a 137 centimetre antenna installed 5 centimetres from the 259 centimetre driven antenna. The 137 centimetre antenna is completely grounded to the bracket and not isolated. It is parasitically driven by the 259 centimeter antenna. A 259 centimetre counterpoise also hangs from the grounded bracket. This allows the antenna to successfully transmit 11 meter, 10 meter and most of 6 meters, without any tuner. As long as the operator does not go higher than 53.4Mhz, everything works great for the owner. With the ugly, junk antenna, the operator has been able to make contacts around the planet on 11, 10, 6 meters. I think it is also used with a tuner for lower bands. I am not sure on that.
I made this antenna for myself yesterday, and it was SO EASY to make, and it worked on the first try! I had 2:1 SWR on the whole band, but the radio easily cleaned that up. I was hearing people from all over the world, made a few contacts, it was great! I hung it from a tree, the whole thing took 30 minutes to make, hang, and get going. Thanks for the video, I really appreciate it! 73
I got lazy and used a cut piece of old copper pipe above the choke. The cheap analyser showed it to have a significantly wide band from 26.9 to 28.5 with, the ends being 2:1 swr. The operator I gave it to seems very happy, inspire of my lazy cut copper pipe. He put it on top of his garage.
Was looking for a quick antenna to throw together to grab CY9C. Built this last night with an old 13 meter piece of coax hanging in the garage. Ran it up to the top of a 12 meter Spiderbeam. First VNA run had it resonating at 29 MHz. Added 50 mm to each side of the dipole and Bob's your uncle. Resonated at 28.2 MHz with an SWR of 1.27. Hooked it to my rig and signals started flooding in from all over the world. In the first 20 minutes, I had FT8 QSOs with South Africa, Croatia, Belize, Serbia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Argentina, Poland, and France. Good on ya, mate!
Ha, 1st day of Spring here, yesterday in Australia (Queensland). I took this recently completed antenna out to the sports ground and attached the Sqid Pole to the fence post,did a few checks and it came in high at the top end and perfect at the low. I was able to trim the tip bit by bit to get it acceptable at the low and high ends and perfect in the centre. Thanks Hayden for the instructional video that was practical, well explained and something most people could do. I was listening to people in Japan and South Africa, locals in Darwin Perth and Sydney the Tassie and Vic stations were faint. Anyway I will set it up again today and see if I can make some contacts. Cheers
This is an excellent "how to" video for anyone wanting to learn the whole process from the maths, the drawings, the actual building to the testing after. Big thanks
I am making a list of meaningful videos, like this one here, so as to give it to each new "ONL" Who passes the first amature radio test here at our club in Brussels and becomes, like me, an "ON3". Having someone who can calmly and clearly explain something, is worth GOLD to a beginner. Then he can feel that he too can do it right away.
I built one of these today based on your design and this video. Just slapped it together with pvc tube and duct tape. Worked great! SWR was so low it wasn't indicating on the Icom 7610, so I answered a CQ and straight away got a contact with VK2GJC, 3000km away. Tomorrow I will make it more permanent and get it a bit higher. I want to make one for 20 metres also. (VK6ABC).
Hey mate! I wanted an antenna that was a bit higher off the ground than my 1/4. They work well and are very simple, don't take a whole lot of room either.
Just made one, commenting in case the info helps anyone 😊 Final cut 2.35m coax into 2.4m top element. 2x 240-52 torroids with a few wraps. (I think i did 9) Lowest swr is 1.6, pretty flat from 27.8-28.8. 29mhz at 2.1:1. Feedpoint mounted about 8m up. Ive used about 4m of RG58 C/U from Jaycar for the torroid winding and coax section of antenna. Then 12m of LMR400 into the shack. Made 12 contacts on FT8 in 20 minutes of testing. VK2 into the US and Japan at 20watts. Probably the wrong coax - its marked RG58C/U (networking cable). Ive got about 30m of it for free and seems to work fine on HF at short runs. Thanks for the video Hayden, enjoying the 10m/6m stuff 😊
Thanks mate, great build! You can probably get that SWR a bit lower - is the antenna mounted up close to anything metal like roof etc? Good luck with the DX! Hopefully the band opens back up once this flare passes!
@HamRadioDX Only about 2-3m off the roof at the moment - having thunderstorms in NSW so being careful / temporary setup. Will end up at same height but on a pole further down the yard - hopefully a better dip there. VK2KFC - thanks again 😊
I made one similar to this for 2m/70cm works great. I didn't attach a separate wire to the inner core I just stripped back the braid the required length. Great video, must try 10m now.
I've built them for 2, 4, 6 and 10metres Great antennas I also dual banded the 2metre one with 70cms using foil sleeve. Superb performance for next to no outlay.
@@jameskaras4345 I built one years ago and couldn't believe the performance! Due to circumstances I had to use it indoors and at ground level. Even so I was regularly talking up to 20miles! And over 40 miles on my helical 4metre one!!
Great video… thanks. My local builder, Michael Vk3cmc strips back the outer braid instead of soldering on the top quarter wave. Testing one yesterday, same as you, with a 705 and listening to 2RSY it gave a whopping 2 S-point improvement on receive over the Diamond CP-6, which, though the latter is a compromise, really surprised me. I have worked some great dx with 10; 15; and 20 metre flower pots!
Awesome! Yeah I just used the wire to save a bit of coax (and time) stripping back the braid, but that's correct you can use just one piece of coax for the whole antenna.
Bottom section is shorter, due to velocity factor, coax slows the signal a bit when used as an elemnt. Good video.coax and it's insulation slow down the signal.
i made one with thin aluminum tube 1,63 m (radiator)and three radials.. i have qso s from all europe, qatar , uk here in Greece.. swr 1.3--1.4... like skylab cb antenna but shorter.. cheers
Hello Hayden, great antenna!. I built one this morning, walked over to the forest just opposite my home, strung it up into a tree with the choke about 2.2m above the ground. Plugged in the NANOVNA and viola - SWR of 1.053. My first contact was ZL out of Hamilton, and I'm in S/W Sydney near Camden. Running the IC-705 on 10W, 5x9 both ways. Happy Dayz!!
Hi Hayden, TNX for video, I am going to work portable on 10 m this summer :-) What a nice metal device you have for installing of the mast! 73%88! Raisa R1BIG/OH7BG
I've been building these for over 20 years for HF/VHF l love them. You can use either a 5 turn choke on a 110mm former or 16 turn choke on a 68mm former for 10m. Mine is currently a 16 turn choke and I've the feedpoint ie the split at 5.37m agl and performance is superb just a few days ago I worked ZS from here in GI on SSB using 5w pep into mine. Great video. De MI5JYK.
I made a few over the years . found you can cut wire 3/4 wave and get a tune. great at 70 cm. I found at full legal power using RG 213 that the end of wire ,do a small loop and solder it back to self. glue line heat shrink every thing. The end effect at high power can make corona at night . had this happen on 6 meters. that DX 10 wire can easy do 1500 watt but not RG 58. when doing VHF.UHF better coax like M & P . RG 8X is great for HF and some power . still easy to make coil with RG 8X . this a nice low cost antenna that works great. no carbon fiber pole. use fiberglass . 73's
They are fabulous. I built one just before Christmas for the New Year SOTA rollover. Going to build one for 21MHz next which is as low as I can go and still fit it on my DX Commander 12m pole.
Nothing wrong with what shown on the video, and it works great , yet we found that an old station master ( 1/2 wave n 11m ) easily tunned to 10m will do better (found one for $10 in a garage sale) , no fuss, cheap, easy to build ( if you can't find a ready one ) and is a DC short, great for noise /QRM rejection and might save your rig if there is a lightning storm is the proximity of your QTH ( direct hit, forget it, lol ) 10m meters is open, let's have fun. thanks for the video.
Thank you for the video and thank you for the prompt response to my questions. There are lots of guys that make videos but very few are willing to help a guy out. …going for the general next weekend and wanted to get a jump start. Thanks again
Great video… thanks. My local builder, Michael Vk3cmc strips back the outer braid instead of soldering on the top quarter wave. Testing one yesterday, same as you, with a 705 and listening to 2RSY it gave a whopping 2 S-point improvement on receive over the Diamond CP-6, which, though the latter is a compromise, really surprised me. I have worked some great dx with 10; 15; and 20 metre flower pots! Peter, VK3ACZ
I have built this antenna out of 75 ohm RG-6U coax which is thicker (7mm) hand has different velocity factor. At the end of the antenna I connected a run of 10 m of RG-58 connected toy radio. I had to add 30cm +/- to the top element in order to bring it resonant on 28.5 MHz. Otherwise it was resonant on 29.9 MHz. If you try to do the same, your measurements and results may vary a bit.
Great video. Is it possible to modify this design for use as a CB base station antenna? If so, could you point me to a resource to help understand and calculate the right antenna length and would the number of turns be be different for 11 meter?
Yep! I would start by adding an extra turn onto the coil. Then use the measured frequency/desired frequency to scale. For instance my antenna came out around 28.5 MHz. So to scale down to 27.5 MHz as an example: 28.5/27.5 = 1.036. Multiply that by the actual length I used - 2.5m I think? 1.036 x 2.5m = 2.59m... maybe make it a tad bit longer just in case and you can always cut some off to trim the SWR. Hope that helps.
Centre Fed Coax Dipole. Built several of these for 6m and mostly 2m. The lower half is shorter because of the 'fatter' element size, not velocity factor. Another way to have even less chance of radiation back down the coax, is to actually fold the braid from the top section back down over it's self on the outside. This does however mean that it will be exposed to the elements, but If it's housed within a PVC pipe it doesn't really matter. the VSWR can be lowered by tweaking the turn count of the choke using a VNA.
I built one of these for 2m/70cm. I built it in side of a 1" piece of schedule 40 so I can stick it on a ground spike, hang it from a tree, lean it in a corner or even hold it in my hand in a pinch. Surprisingly good little antenna. Built to spec it was a little bit long. I ended up unwinding a couple turns off the coil and that brought it right down to flat @ 146Mhz where I wanted it. 6m is probably next :) 73 KC3UVF
In the classes at the radio club they made us make this antenna for 2m, but they suggested using a 75 ohm cable instead of 50. We made the two to compare and incredibly it works much better, we were able to open a repeater 70km up a mountain at 3500 meters high
of course it is much more tortuous to learn how to solder a connector on an rg59 cable. but as a prize you get a super cheap antenna that you can use as your first base station
Im using a half wave dipole in my attic on 10m andvits terrible. Im in a antenna restricted housing unit and i could deploy this antenna quite easily in the trees near the house on a fiberglass pole. Great video! Thank you
@HamRadioDX I finally got around to building this antenna and did one for 6 meters too. Both are working great. I also got an Icom 705 and the noise floor is half of what it was on my IC-706. S-1 noise level on 10 meters now! Cheers
My simple 10 meter verticle is a 108 inch stainless whip atop 22 foot aluminum military poles with the top most pole fiberglass.with three 8 foot wire radials its been up 9 years and has outlasted 2 of my previous factory made cb style antennas i will never go back have made many DX all over the world.jim KB1PFL
Do I assume that the reduced length of the braided coax piece compared to the centre wire top piece is deliberate to offset the dipole and therefore increases the impedance towards 50 ohms?
Very broadbanded and versatile antenna the T2LT although the acronym really refers to the choke not the complete antenna. On 11 meters I talk over most of the planet with it just now as conditions are as you know the best they've been for quite a while. My choke (ugly balun) is 5 turns at about 4.5 inch diameter iirc. Going to now build one to the dimensions in the video to compare the results. I suspect the tuned transmission line trap may originally have had some sort of variable capacitor in parallel or maybe the capacitance of the coax in the choke is adequate. I'm sure someone will enlighten us.
Fascinating build! I was about to make a 10M inverted V dipole in my attic as I already have 40M outside but then saw this. Maybe why not try building a vertical once a while! Also how much power is this antenna can tolerate? I have my Dad's old IC-751A that still works well and seems never used beside 40M and 80M band, I think it's outputting around 100W but maybe 70 or 80 this time.
I was looking at this, and I was wondering, wouldn't it be even SIMPLER to throw a stack of ferrite beads down at the right position for 10m. Then I was thinking that if you could slide those beads around you could move them up for 6m and move them down for 10m. Then, at the end of the coax put a banana connector on the center conductor and have two different lengths for 6m and 10m. Think it will work?
Yes I have. I think the 31 mix is a bit better at the higher frequencies, so it should work at 10m and 6m well. I think I actually have a mix 31 on my 6m yagi.
Hello Hayden VK7HH. I'm Artur CT2JOG and I live in Portugal. I've been watching the video: Build an Easy 10 Meter antenna, and I want to make one for myself, but I have some questions: 1 - What is the most suitable size for a fishing pole? in meters. 2 - What kind of conductive wire for the top of the antenna? any in particular? mono or multi filament? 3 - After making the 24 turns of the PVC pipe, what is the maximum length of the RG-58 CU coaxial cable up to the PL-259 plug? Is it only 5 meters? could it be another longer length? which? 4 - At what minimum height from the ground should the PVC pipe with the 24 turns be? 5 - How to tune the antenna (if it has tuning) for a low SWR? Thank you for your attention. 73
Hi Remo. To answer some of your questions: 1. The pole I have my antenna on is about 7m long. I'd call that the minimum. 2. Not that important, although if you use solid core it might fracture and break. 3. The length of cable can be as long as you need, except just remember loss will increase the longer you go. 4. I use mine about 2m above the ground. The higher the better. 5. Trim the main wire at the top (to increase the frequency) or add some on to decrease. You can also reduce or increase turns on the coil.
I built one of these last year after having great success with my dual band VHF / UHF flowerpot. What I don't understand tho is the difference in length of the coax portion to the wire portion. Is there a specific ratio between the lengths? Mine is centered on 28.4mhz after initially being long and great for 11m.
I really need to get on 10m. When you say 50mm does the outer diameter actually measure as 50mm. Bunnings sells DN40 and DN50 PVC pipe and for those the measurement is inner diameter. For DN40 pvc-u pressure pipe the actual outer diameter is 48mm. Also I used my nano vna as a dip meter. Where you connect it to a short length of wire that makes one turn around the coil. This works really well for making loading coils with a know test 33pf in parallel. I tried making a coax coil but found I couldn't get it self resonant (outer shield to outer shield) on 28.5mhz. In fact it had two resonant frequencies and wouldn't come up or down to 28.5mhz. I also found feeding a fibreglass telescopic pole through the centre (or even next to it) affected the self resonance. So I'm wondering how important the self resonance actually is. It seems very sensitive to how tight the coax coil is wound (shield to shield inter turn capacitance) the number of turns and what's nearby including my fibreglass telescopic pipe (Haverford 6m). So I think it would be a miracle to get it to 28.5Mhz in practice. If you trace back the origins of 24 turns on 50mm pipe you find they came from a self resonance calculator. Air coin 28 turns adjusted to 24 turns due to the PVC tubing.
I think the PVC I used was an old piece of 50mm tube from... somewhere? In future builds rather than a coil "air choke" I'd use a FT240-31 toroid with a few wraps through it.
Would you (or anyone reading this) know if the 10-meter version could be built with TV coax? I've built the so-called "double bazooka" dipoles with TV coax (20 and 40 meters) and have had great success with them at 100 watts. I just don't know if this type of coax would be a problem with this design because of the coil. I have a crap-ton of this coax and don't really watch TV. LOL
I seen this on Ali it has the slider it looked interesting and well priced in comparison. Now I see people are doing interesting things with it and seem to like it a lot. Thanks for sharing. You think it would work good with X6100 or just stick with endfed? P.S Not exactly the same you made yours of course but if I got the coil with the slider but then followed your set up?
Hayden, Thanks for the video. What are your thoughts on running wire antenna elements over the top of steel roof sections, like we do in Australia and New Zealand, with respect to ColourSteel and other corrugated iron sections? I've tried to find information on this, but most of the hams I've read (in the US) use things like bitumen based shingles over plywood, where they would not encounter in ground effects like this. I've had various issues with metal roofs over the years, is there a solution to this, apart from having to raise your centre-point and the wires at least 1/2 a wavelength above the roofing iron? Cheers, 73, Mike ZL3XD.
Hey Mike, I guess it depends on what antenna it is. If it's a large-ish roof... and a 1/4 vertical, then a colourbond steel roof can act as a great groundplane! I know someone who runs a DX Commander on top of his garage roof and uses it as a groundplane. I've mounted a halfwave vertical on the roof before without problems and the base of that was only about 0.5m above the roof. Of course this is all HF. 73 Hayden
The fundamental issue with this design is that you're using a choke (hint: they block current) to try to stop the current at the bottom end of the bottom element (hint: Hi-Z point = lowest possible current). The bottom end is a high voltage point, with little current. The choke will barely work. The coax will be hot with RF, and thus be part of the antenna. So the whole design is 'suspect' from the get-go. The similar but better design involves adding another layer to the bottom, to act as a standalone element with a truly open-circuit high-Z end. It's called a "coaxial (vertical) dipole"; and you can look it up. In short: the coax is fed up inside the lower element, and feeds from the middle as any dipole. The lower element is often made from some outer shield harvested from the same coax; beware that you need extra length as if shrinks lengthwise when expanded to fit over the coax. That said, on 10m, almost any old antenna will work. It need not be optimal. I'm talking across oceans using a 4-foot CB whip trimmed to 10m. And it's mounted indoors. So don't worry about it too much. I'm just trying to point out that this widely-promoted design is fundamentally flawed. The historical design of a coaxial dipole is fundamentally better. 73.
@@yungsmile7546 I think this man is correct with his theory. Are you up on your antenna, transmission line, CMC and coaxial choke theory (whether it be ferrites or not)? Are you a ham?
So how do traps work.... Because the same logic would apply and traps mark the end of the dipole for the lower frequency. The "choke" here is actually a trap. VK6MIK.
@@moozoowizard Yup, I totally agree with that. I have built this same antenna myself and works great. Without the bottom coil, tuning process can be difficult. Like you said, it is more terminating coil than a choke by using its "self-resonance" frequency to create high impedance. Regarding to worries about burning antenna because of "Current Maxima" radiation, just use thicker coax to build one. Instead of RG58 type, RG8-x (or mini) works great! Still flexible and light weight. It can withstand continuous RF well above 600 watts.
I built one of these, but wondering if/how you calculated the coil specs, as i only had 1.5" pipe lying around, I tried winding the same length that used and making the other measurements the same but my vna says the lowest dip in swr is much lower, like 20MHz i tried winding more coil which brought the frequency up to target by the performance i feel is lacking and when i hooked up my feedline it got much worse, so googling it seems its being reactive ? as its not a 50 ohm match ?
This may be a dumb question, but where did you get your numbers? I get the half wavelength for the center conductor, but where did you come up with the 2450 for the braid length and how did you get the number of turns for the choke? Are there formulas for these or did you just pull them out of the air and base them on experience?
Nicely built and helpful that we can build one too. May I ask sir, are Station Master aluminum halfwave antennas for 10/11 meter still being built there? I believe its an Australian product. Thank you.
Hey mate, Yes Stationmasters are still being built by a couple of sellers. www.gccomm.com.au/collections/27mhz-radios-and-antennas/products/grazy-master-27mhz-base-antenna shockwaveantennas.com.au/
@@HamRadioDXThank you so much sir for the reply. I've got a nephew down there and maybe ask him to buy one for me. By the way sir, for this antenna build in this video, can I use a bamboo pole instead to be a lot more cheaper? Here in the Philippines, we do have a lot of different kinds of bamboos thst slim and light. 73 and all the best to you and your family.
By using RG58 coax, safe continuous transmitting power (AM, FM, etc) would be around 100~150 watts. RG8x coax can withstand around 400~600 watts. If you need above those numbers, try 10mm diameter coaxes such as RG213, LMR400.
Just a question :D Can you use this antenna the other way around with the output on top and the conductor closer to the ground? I'm thinking bout something that could hang off my balcony.
@@HamRadioDX jUST HEARD THIS WITH A 6 METER BUILD, JUST HADN'T THOUGHT OF iT? I HAVE SEVERAL THOUSAND FEET OF 75 CABLE HARDLINE, AM THINKING Of BULDING SEVERAL BANDS VERTCALS? tHANKS, I enjoy your channel.
The EASIEST Antenna to build for Six Meters using one piece of RG-58 coax!
ua-cam.com/video/4h7UGNbWmsY/v-deo.html
You are correct. However, that may not be convenient for mobile installation. You will think this bizarre. I set up a dual band antenna with a driven 259 centimetre antenna for 11 meter and 10 meter. The driven 259 centimetre antenna shares the same grounded bracket with a 137 centimetre antenna installed 5 centimetres from the 259 centimetre driven antenna. The 137 centimetre antenna is completely grounded to the bracket and not isolated. It is parasitically driven by the 259 centimeter antenna. A 259 centimetre counterpoise also hangs from the grounded bracket. This allows the antenna to successfully transmit 11 meter, 10 meter and most of 6 meters, without any tuner. As long as the operator does not go higher than 53.4Mhz, everything works great for the owner. With the ugly, junk antenna, the operator has been able to make contacts around the planet on 11, 10, 6 meters. I think it is also used with a tuner for lower bands. I am not sure on that.
I made this antenna for myself yesterday, and it was SO EASY to make, and it worked on the first try! I had 2:1 SWR on the whole band, but the radio easily cleaned that up. I was hearing people from all over the world, made a few contacts, it was great! I hung it from a tree, the whole thing took 30 minutes to make, hang, and get going. Thanks for the video, I really appreciate it! 73
That's awesome to hear! Nice work
I got lazy and used a cut piece of old copper pipe above the choke. The cheap analyser showed it to have a significantly wide band from 26.9 to 28.5 with, the ends being 2:1 swr. The operator I gave it to seems very happy, inspire of my lazy cut copper pipe. He put it on top of his garage.
Dimensions of the Cu pipe?
How long was the pipe and did you use the same choke as the one used in this video? I would like to build one with aluminum pipe. Thanks.
Was looking for a quick antenna to throw together to grab CY9C. Built this last night with an old 13 meter piece of coax hanging in the garage. Ran it up to the top of a 12 meter Spiderbeam. First VNA run had it resonating at 29 MHz. Added 50 mm to each side of the dipole and Bob's your uncle. Resonated at 28.2 MHz with an SWR of 1.27. Hooked it to my rig and signals started flooding in from all over the world. In the first 20 minutes, I had FT8 QSOs with South Africa, Croatia, Belize, Serbia, Bulgaria, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, Argentina, Poland, and France. Good on ya, mate!
Sweeeeeet! Glad to hear you had some success straight up, that's awesome! Hope to work you one day on 10m!
4 months later this video suddenly becomes relevant for me as spring/early summer has finally arrived. Thank you! Excellent tutorial. 👍
Haha awesome! About 4 months before it was our spring/summer 😂
Ha, 1st day of Spring here, yesterday in Australia (Queensland). I took this recently completed antenna out to the sports ground and attached the Sqid Pole to the fence post,did a few checks and it came in high at the top end and perfect at the low. I was able to trim the tip bit by bit to get it acceptable at the low and high ends and perfect in the centre. Thanks Hayden for the instructional video that was practical, well explained and something most people could do. I was listening to people in Japan and South Africa, locals in Darwin Perth and Sydney the Tassie and Vic stations were faint. Anyway I will set it up again today and see if I can make some contacts. Cheers
This is an excellent "how to" video for anyone wanting to learn the whole process from the maths, the drawings, the actual building to the testing after.
Big thanks
Thanks glad it was helpful!
I am making a list of meaningful videos, like this one here, so as to give it to each new "ONL" Who passes the first amature radio test here at our club in Brussels and becomes, like me, an "ON3".
Having someone who can calmly and clearly explain something, is worth GOLD to a beginner. Then he can feel that he too can do it right away.
I built one of these today based on your design and this video. Just slapped it together with pvc tube and duct tape. Worked great! SWR was so low it wasn't indicating on the Icom 7610, so I answered a CQ and straight away got a contact with VK2GJC, 3000km away. Tomorrow I will make it more permanent and get it a bit higher. I want to make one for 20 metres also. (VK6ABC).
OMG you've read my mind. I was only telling someone the other day, "I'll have to make a 10m and 6m flowerpot antenna" and mount it on my squidpole.
Hey mate!
I wanted an antenna that was a bit higher off the ground than my 1/4. They work well and are very simple, don't take a whole lot of room either.
Just made one, commenting in case the info helps anyone 😊
Final cut 2.35m coax into 2.4m top element. 2x 240-52 torroids with a few wraps. (I think i did 9)
Lowest swr is 1.6, pretty flat from 27.8-28.8. 29mhz at 2.1:1.
Feedpoint mounted about 8m up.
Ive used about 4m of RG58 C/U from Jaycar for the torroid winding and coax section of antenna. Then 12m of LMR400 into the shack.
Made 12 contacts on FT8 in 20 minutes of testing. VK2 into the US and Japan at 20watts.
Probably the wrong coax - its marked RG58C/U (networking cable). Ive got about 30m of it for free and seems to work fine on HF at short runs.
Thanks for the video Hayden, enjoying the 10m/6m stuff 😊
Thanks mate, great build! You can probably get that SWR a bit lower - is the antenna mounted up close to anything metal like roof etc?
Good luck with the DX! Hopefully the band opens back up once this flare passes!
@HamRadioDX Only about 2-3m off the roof at the moment - having thunderstorms in NSW so being careful / temporary setup.
Will end up at same height but on a pole further down the yard - hopefully a better dip there.
VK2KFC - thanks again 😊
Awesome! Hope to work you on 10m soon! Love the callsign too
How far from or above a metal roof does the choke of the vertical dipole need to be?
Thanks.
I made one similar to this for 2m/70cm works great. I didn't attach a separate wire to the inner core I just stripped back the braid the required length. Great video, must try 10m now.
Surprisingly simple build, and those transmissions came in pretty clean, too. Very impressive.
I've built them for 2, 4, 6 and 10metres Great antennas I also dual banded the 2metre one with 70cms using foil sleeve. Superb performance for next to no outlay.
flowerpot dualband.. great antennas
@@jameskaras4345 I built one years ago and couldn't believe the performance! Due to circumstances I had to use it indoors and at ground level. Even so I was regularly talking up to 20miles! And over 40 miles on my helical 4metre one!!
Thanks, that's a great compact antenna. I built a 10m delta loop recently which also works very well but it needs more space as it uses 2 guy ropes.
Great video… thanks. My local builder, Michael Vk3cmc strips back the outer braid instead of soldering on the top quarter wave. Testing one yesterday, same as you, with a 705 and listening to 2RSY it gave a whopping 2 S-point improvement on receive over the Diamond CP-6, which, though the latter is a compromise, really surprised me.
I have worked some great dx with 10; 15; and 20 metre flower pots!
Awesome! Yeah I just used the wire to save a bit of coax (and time) stripping back the braid, but that's correct you can use just one piece of coax for the whole antenna.
@@HamRadioDX Hi. Do you strip the dielectric to expose a bare top copper wire, or leave dielectric on if mounted in PVC?? :-)
What I really like about this antenna is it is elevated off the ground.
Buult one awhile back. Absolutely amazing, how well it performs.
Ah! They work great.. nice going Hayden
Thanks Tim! You've had great success with them, it was time to get one on 10m here. Working well!
Bottom section is shorter, due to velocity factor, coax slows the signal a bit when used as an elemnt. Good video.coax and it's insulation slow down the signal.
i made one with thin aluminum tube 1,63 m (radiator)and three radials.. i have qso s from all europe, qatar , uk here in Greece.. swr 1.3--1.4... like skylab cb antenna but shorter.. cheers
Hello Hayden, great antenna!. I built one this morning, walked over to the forest just opposite my home, strung it up into a tree with the choke about 2.2m above the ground. Plugged in the NANOVNA and viola - SWR of 1.053. My first contact was ZL out of Hamilton, and I'm in S/W Sydney near Camden. Running the IC-705 on 10W, 5x9 both ways. Happy Dayz!!
That is awesome!
Hi Hayden, TNX for video, I am going to work portable on 10 m this summer :-) What a nice metal device you have for installing of the mast! 73%88! Raisa R1BIG/OH7BG
Thanks Raisa!
I've been building these for over 20 years for HF/VHF l love them. You can use either a 5 turn choke on a 110mm former or 16 turn choke on a 68mm former for 10m.
Mine is currently a 16 turn choke and I've the feedpoint ie the split at 5.37m agl and performance is superb just a few days ago I worked ZS from here in GI on SSB using 5w pep into mine.
Great video. De MI5JYK.
Thanks!
Brilliant video! As a noob I love stuff like this. Ty for sharing
Glad you enjoyed it! Happy building
Nice build. You explained it quite well. Even I could build this. 😆
Thanks Phil
I made a few over the years . found you can cut wire 3/4 wave and get a tune. great at 70 cm. I found at full legal power using RG 213 that the end of wire ,do a small loop and solder it back to self. glue line heat shrink every thing. The end effect at high power can make corona at night . had this happen on 6 meters. that DX 10 wire can easy do 1500 watt but not RG 58. when doing VHF.UHF better coax like M & P . RG 8X is great for HF and some power . still easy to make coil with RG 8X . this a nice low cost antenna that works great. no carbon fiber pole. use fiberglass . 73's
10 meter aka 28mhz is one of my favorite!
Great band
They are fabulous. I built one just before Christmas for the New Year SOTA rollover. Going to build one for 21MHz next which is as low as I can go and still fit it on my DX Commander 12m pole.
14MHz should more or less fit on a 12m pole.
Nothing wrong with what shown on the video, and it works great , yet we found that an old station master ( 1/2 wave n 11m ) easily tunned to 10m will do better (found one for $10 in a garage sale) , no fuss, cheap, easy to build ( if you can't find a ready one ) and is a DC short, great for noise /QRM rejection and might save your rig if there is a lightning storm is the proximity of your QTH ( direct hit, forget it, lol )
10m meters is open, let's have fun.
thanks for the video.
all high bands are going nuts
Nice video. But why use an additional wire as top side of the antenna. You could strip the inner wire leaving the coating as protection.
Thanks for this tutorial, this is my first HF antenna :)
Awesome! How did your build go?
Thanks, buddy! I needed that... Trying to get going in 10M CW with a Xiegu G90 and a coupla spoons...
Thank you for the video and thank you for the prompt response to my questions. There are lots of guys that make videos but very few are willing to help a guy out.
…going for the general next weekend and wanted to get a jump start.
Thanks again
Good luck with your test, I'm sure you'll pass it with flying colors!
Nice build!
Perfect aerial for /p.
Either a drive-on mast base , tie the pole to a post or hang it off a tree.
Gets you away from the QRM
Great video… thanks. My local builder, Michael Vk3cmc strips back the outer braid instead of soldering on the top quarter wave. Testing one yesterday, same as you, with a 705 and listening to 2RSY it gave a whopping 2 S-point improvement on receive over the Diamond CP-6, which, though the latter is a compromise, really surprised me.
I have worked some great dx with 10; 15; and 20 metre flower pots!
Peter, VK3ACZ
Hmm, turning 5 m of coax (even RG58) into single-core wire doesn't make much economic sense, unless you use the braid for something else!
@@MirlitronOnethe braid is used as the second part of the antenna folded over the coax down from the feedpoint.
Great job!!! Excelent antenna...
Yo uso la Flower Pot 70/2 metros con excelentes prestaciones...
Saludos desde ARGENTINA, LW5DKN
I have built this antenna out of 75 ohm RG-6U coax which is thicker (7mm) hand has different velocity factor. At the end of the antenna I connected a run of 10 m of RG-58 connected toy radio. I had to add 30cm +/- to the top element in order to bring it resonant on 28.5 MHz. Otherwise it was resonant on 29.9 MHz. If you try to do the same, your measurements and results may vary a bit.
Great video. Is it possible to modify this design for use as a CB base station antenna? If so, could you point me to a resource to help understand and calculate the right antenna length and would the number of turns be be different for 11 meter?
Yep! I would start by adding an extra turn onto the coil.
Then use the measured frequency/desired frequency to scale.
For instance my antenna came out around 28.5 MHz. So to scale down to 27.5 MHz as an example:
28.5/27.5 = 1.036.
Multiply that by the actual length I used - 2.5m I think? 1.036 x 2.5m = 2.59m... maybe make it a tad bit longer just in case and you can always cut some off to trim the SWR. Hope that helps.
@@HamRadioDX Thank you! That helps a lot! And thanks for the videos. Looking forward to watching more of them.
Centre Fed Coax Dipole. Built several of these for 6m and mostly 2m. The lower half is shorter because of the 'fatter' element size, not velocity factor. Another way to have even less chance of radiation back down the coax, is to actually fold the braid from the top section back down over it's self on the outside. This does however mean that it will be exposed to the elements, but If it's housed within a PVC pipe it doesn't really matter. the VSWR can be lowered by tweaking the turn count of the choke using a VNA.
How do you work out the length with different size coax? Do you have a reference or formula you can share please? Thanks.
I built one of these for 2m/70cm. I built it in side of a 1" piece of schedule 40 so I can stick it on a ground spike, hang it from a tree, lean it in a corner or even hold it in my hand in a pinch. Surprisingly good little antenna. Built to spec it was a little bit long. I ended up unwinding a couple turns off the coil and that brought it right down to flat @ 146Mhz where I wanted it. 6m is probably next :)
73 KC3UVF
Awesome Hayden! 👍👍👍
In the classes at the radio club they made us make this antenna for 2m, but they suggested using a 75 ohm cable instead of 50. We made the two to compare and incredibly it works much better, we were able to open a repeater 70km up a mountain at 3500 meters high
of course it is much more tortuous to learn how to solder a connector on an rg59 cable. but as a prize you get a super cheap antenna that you can use as your first base station
Why 75ohm cable?
Great video, would it be a good idea to trim the wire a little to bring down the swr to the required frequency.....
Im using a half wave dipole in my attic on 10m andvits terrible. Im in a antenna restricted housing unit and i could deploy this antenna quite easily in the trees near the house on a fiberglass pole. Great video! Thank you
Awesome! Glad it helped!
@HamRadioDX I finally got around to building this antenna and did one for 6 meters too. Both are working great. I also got an Icom 705 and the noise floor is half of what it was on my IC-706. S-1 noise level on 10 meters now! Cheers
Great video. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Way back in the 70s-80s we had 10 Meter on our CB radios, I gad a cobra 148 with 10 Meter .
Cheap as chips and works great.👍
Just worked about a dozen USA stations this morning. Heard SSB too!
My simple 10 meter verticle is a 108 inch stainless whip atop 22 foot aluminum military poles with the top most pole fiberglass.with three 8 foot wire radials its been up 9 years and has outlasted 2 of my previous factory made cb style antennas i will never go back have made many DX all over the world.jim KB1PFL
Do I assume that the reduced length of the braided coax piece compared to the centre wire top piece is deliberate to offset the dipole and therefore increases the impedance towards 50 ohms?
Thank you for this vidéo ! This is a nice antenna ;-) 73 Sullivan F4HZC
Le 76 en force 😁
Did i just hear you apologise for using metric measurements 😮
Should be the other way around 😉
what 2 cable sizes did you use again? and what lenghs i want to do 10 and 11 meters so will need slightly longer but dont know by how much
Very broadbanded and versatile antenna the T2LT although the acronym really refers to the choke not the complete antenna. On 11 meters I talk over most of the planet with it just now as conditions are as you know the best they've been for quite a while. My choke (ugly balun) is 5 turns at about 4.5 inch diameter iirc. Going to now build one to the dimensions in the video to compare the results. I suspect the tuned transmission line trap may originally have had some sort of variable capacitor in parallel or maybe the capacitance of the coax in the choke is adequate. I'm sure someone will enlighten us.
HAM radio is fun 😀
Fascinating build! I was about to make a 10M inverted V dipole in my attic as I already have 40M outside but then saw this. Maybe why not try building a vertical once a while! Also how much power is this antenna can tolerate? I have my Dad's old IC-751A that still works well and seems never used beside 40M and 80M band, I think it's outputting around 100W but maybe 70 or 80 this time.
100W will be fine with this antenna, I suspect you can run much much more
Getting the materials together now. Is there a benefit or problem running the feed into an antenna tuner?
I was looking at this, and I was wondering, wouldn't it be even SIMPLER to throw a stack of ferrite beads down at the right position for 10m. Then I was thinking that if you could slide those beads around you could move them up for 6m and move them down for 10m. Then, at the end of the coax put a banana connector on the center conductor and have two different lengths for 6m and 10m. Think it will work?
Hello, thanks for the video, good antenna👌👍
APROX 2.50m radiator and 3 radials and its ok.. made many contacts with this,,swr 1-1, 1-2
I did a 2m version of this ....works well!
Have you ever considered using an FT240-31 instead of an FT240-43? I've used the former for EFHW and it's worked great
Yes I have. I think the 31 mix is a bit better at the higher frequencies, so it should work at 10m and 6m well. I think I actually have a mix 31 on my 6m yagi.
Question, how did the relieved contact show up on the map?
Could I cut down a 102" steel whip to 36 inches, 3ft and expect it to work well mounted on top of a Ford Ranger angled to the rear?
.
Very cool. Thanks. It's appreciated. I might give this a try....
Have fun!
Hello Hayden VK7HH. I'm Artur CT2JOG and I live in Portugal. I've been watching the video: Build an Easy 10 Meter antenna, and I want to make one for myself, but I have some questions:
1 - What is the most suitable size for a fishing pole? in meters.
2 - What kind of conductive wire for the top of the antenna? any in particular? mono or multi filament?
3 - After making the 24 turns of the PVC pipe, what is the maximum length of the RG-58 CU coaxial cable up to the PL-259 plug? Is it only 5 meters? could it be another longer length? which?
4 - At what minimum height from the ground should the PVC pipe with the 24 turns be?
5 - How to tune the antenna (if it has tuning) for a low SWR?
Thank you for your attention. 73
Hi Remo. To answer some of your questions:
1. The pole I have my antenna on is about 7m long. I'd call that the minimum.
2. Not that important, although if you use solid core it might fracture and break.
3. The length of cable can be as long as you need, except just remember loss will increase the longer you go.
4. I use mine about 2m above the ground. The higher the better.
5. Trim the main wire at the top (to increase the frequency) or add some on to decrease. You can also reduce or increase turns on the coil.
@@HamRadioDX Thank´s for the answer to my questions. 73
Thanks for the video! I need a 10m antenna.
Hello Hayden, great tutorial, can you please tell me the link for the map shown in the beginning.
pskreporter.info/pskmap.html
This is a fantastic idea. Quick question though, how would I adapt this to work as a 2m antenna? Thank you.
Check out this link - it has plans to build a 2m version. vk2zoi.com/articles/half-wave-flower-pot/
I built one of these last year after having great success with my dual band VHF / UHF flowerpot. What I don't understand tho is the difference in length of the coax portion to the wire portion. Is there a specific ratio between the lengths? Mine is centered on 28.4mhz after initially being long and great for 11m.
I really need to get on 10m. When you say 50mm does the outer diameter actually measure as 50mm. Bunnings sells DN40 and DN50 PVC pipe and for those the measurement is inner diameter. For DN40 pvc-u pressure pipe the actual outer diameter is 48mm. Also I used my nano vna as a dip meter. Where you connect it to a short length of wire that makes one turn around the coil. This works really well for making loading coils with a know test 33pf in parallel. I tried making a coax coil but found I couldn't get it self resonant (outer shield to outer shield) on 28.5mhz. In fact it had two resonant frequencies and wouldn't come up or down to 28.5mhz. I also found feeding a fibreglass telescopic pole through the centre (or even next to it) affected the self resonance.
So I'm wondering how important the self resonance actually is. It seems very sensitive to how tight the coax coil is wound (shield to shield inter turn capacitance) the number of turns and what's nearby including my fibreglass telescopic pipe (Haverford 6m). So I think it would be a miracle to get it to 28.5Mhz in practice. If you trace back the origins of 24 turns on 50mm pipe you find they came from a self resonance calculator. Air coin 28 turns adjusted to 24 turns due to the PVC tubing.
I think the PVC I used was an old piece of 50mm tube from... somewhere?
In future builds rather than a coil "air choke" I'd use a FT240-31 toroid with a few wraps through it.
Great video thank you for sharing great job !
No worries at all, did you make one?
Can I use rg8x instead of rg58 thx
Thanks you!
Is it also possible to build this antenna for the 15 or 20m band? If yes is there a good explanation what are the differences to the 10m antenna? 73s
Would you (or anyone reading this) know if the 10-meter version could be built with TV coax? I've built the so-called "double bazooka" dipoles with TV coax (20 and 40 meters) and have had great success with them at 100 watts. I just don't know if this type of coax would be a problem with this design because of the coil. I have a crap-ton of this coax and don't really watch TV. LOL
I seen this on Ali it has the slider it looked interesting and well priced in comparison. Now I see people are doing interesting things with it and seem to like it a lot. Thanks for sharing. You think it would work good with X6100 or just stick with endfed? P.S Not exactly the same you made yours of course but if I got the coil with the slider but then followed your set up?
Have you tried 5 turns on a 10mm PVC instead?
isn't bigger , better ?
seriously, I need to learn
many 73's
Good morning. I really liked your video. Is it the same Flower Pot project by John Bishop (VK2ZOI)?
Yes, it is!
Diameter of PVC pipe was given at 1.97", what is the length, please?
Hayden,
Thanks for the video.
What are your thoughts on running wire antenna elements over the top of steel roof sections, like we do in Australia and New Zealand, with respect to ColourSteel and other corrugated iron sections?
I've tried to find information on this, but most of the hams I've read (in the US) use things like bitumen based shingles over plywood, where they would not encounter in ground effects like this.
I've had various issues with metal roofs over the years, is there a solution to this, apart from having to raise your centre-point and the wires at least 1/2 a wavelength above the roofing iron?
Cheers,
73, Mike ZL3XD.
Hey Mike,
I guess it depends on what antenna it is. If it's a large-ish roof... and a 1/4 vertical, then a colourbond steel roof can act as a great groundplane!
I know someone who runs a DX Commander on top of his garage roof and uses it as a groundplane.
I've mounted a halfwave vertical on the roof before without problems and the base of that was only about 0.5m above the roof.
Of course this is all HF.
73
Hayden
The fundamental issue with this design is that you're using a choke (hint: they block current) to try to stop the current at the bottom end of the bottom element (hint: Hi-Z point = lowest possible current). The bottom end is a high voltage point, with little current. The choke will barely work. The coax will be hot with RF, and thus be part of the antenna. So the whole design is 'suspect' from the get-go.
The similar but better design involves adding another layer to the bottom, to act as a standalone element with a truly open-circuit high-Z end. It's called a "coaxial (vertical) dipole"; and you can look it up. In short: the coax is fed up inside the lower element, and feeds from the middle as any dipole. The lower element is often made from some outer shield harvested from the same coax; beware that you need extra length as if shrinks lengthwise when expanded to fit over the coax.
That said, on 10m, almost any old antenna will work. It need not be optimal. I'm talking across oceans using a 4-foot CB whip trimmed to 10m. And it's mounted indoors. So don't worry about it too much. I'm just trying to point out that this widely-promoted design is fundamentally flawed. The historical design of a coaxial dipole is fundamentally better.
73.
Another exspurt with no experience with this antenna😂
@@yungsmile7546 I think this man is correct with his theory. Are you up on your antenna, transmission line, CMC and coaxial choke theory (whether it be ferrites or not)? Are you a ham?
Then flower pot antenna it is. No choke needed, but will use more coax (outer part) to flip over to cover bottom half.
So how do traps work.... Because the same logic would apply and traps mark the end of the dipole for the lower frequency. The "choke" here is actually a trap. VK6MIK.
@@moozoowizard Yup, I totally agree with that. I have built this same antenna myself and works great. Without the bottom coil, tuning process can be difficult. Like you said, it is more terminating coil than a choke by using its "self-resonance" frequency to create high impedance. Regarding to worries about burning antenna because of "Current Maxima" radiation, just use thicker coax to build one. Instead of RG58 type, RG8-x (or mini) works great! Still flexible and light weight. It can withstand continuous RF well above 600 watts.
Will I need to change the choke also for 11 meters or just the antenna length?
Did you ever figure this out? I’m building one this weekend
I built one of these, but wondering if/how you calculated the coil specs, as i only had 1.5" pipe lying around, I tried winding the same length that used and making the other measurements the same but my vna says the lowest dip in swr is much lower, like 20MHz i tried winding more coil which brought the frequency up to target by the performance i feel is lacking and when i hooked up my feedline it got much worse, so googling it seems its being reactive ? as its not a 50 ohm match ?
This may be a dumb question, but where did you get your numbers? I get the half wavelength for the center conductor, but where did you come up with the 2450 for the braid length and how did you get the number of turns for the choke? Are there formulas for these or did you just pull them out of the air and base them on experience?
Why would you expect it to be 50 ohms (lower SWR)?
Hi why dont you use the inner part of coax instead of soldering some wire on for top of antenna, a use rg213 for theese antennas, I have 1kw output.
You can do that... I just saved some coax by using wire.
Hey Hayden, what software are you running at the end of this video?
Gridtracker? gridtracker.org/
Nicely built and helpful that we can build one too. May I ask sir, are Station Master aluminum halfwave antennas for 10/11 meter still being built there? I believe its an Australian product. Thank you.
Hey mate,
Yes Stationmasters are still being built by a couple of sellers.
www.gccomm.com.au/collections/27mhz-radios-and-antennas/products/grazy-master-27mhz-base-antenna
shockwaveantennas.com.au/
@@HamRadioDXThank you so much sir for the reply. I've got a nephew down there and maybe ask him to buy one for me. By the way sir, for this antenna build in this video, can I use a bamboo pole instead to be a lot more cheaper? Here in the Philippines, we do have a lot of different kinds of bamboos thst slim and light. 73 and all the best to you and your family.
@@franciscolopez3229A bamboo pole would be ideal.
@@franciscolopez3229A bamboo pole would be ideal.
@@paulsengupta971Roger that sir, much appreciated.
You could just strip the top 2.5M of outer & braid, from the coax and save 1 solder joint
That's right you could
Do you need to have a separate piece for the element soldered onto the top, or can you just use the core of the coax as one piece?
You can use the core of the coax for the top piece, just strip away the braid and outer jacket,
Interesting. I've heard of people getting excellent results simply hanging coax from a branch in a tree. I guess ultimately if it works.....
Any reason why the 2.5 meter section of wire cant be inside of a PVC pole instead of outside?
It can be inside, but the length will need to be adjusted accordingly
Added 3k contacts in FT8 using this antenna + rig Xiegu G90, thanks de 9W8VAT
Can i do 5 turns of coax only as a choke?
Nice Video. What sort of power (watts) can be used with this antenna
By using RG58 coax, safe continuous transmitting power (AM, FM, etc) would be around 100~150 watts. RG8x coax can withstand around 400~600 watts. If you need above those numbers, try 10mm diameter coaxes such as RG213, LMR400.
Just a question :D Can you use this antenna the other way around with the output on top and the conductor closer to the ground? I'm thinking bout something that could hang off my balcony.
I'm sure you could try to invert it yes.
very nice!
Can you simulate it in MMANA? How?
Curious, being a dipole, why are each side not equal? Off center feed?
Velocity factor correction of the coax
@@HamRadioDX jUST HEARD THIS WITH A 6 METER BUILD, JUST HADN'T THOUGHT OF iT? I HAVE SEVERAL THOUSAND FEET OF 75 CABLE HARDLINE, AM THINKING Of BULDING SEVERAL BANDS VERTCALS? tHANKS, I enjoy your channel.