Tuesday, August 27, 2024

2002 antenna work - 6 element logperiodic


  It has been in the ninetees of last century I started to experiment and build antennas. Sometimes together with friends. I had a friend which I spoke quite often on 11m back in those days. He was also living near the coast but about 60km east of me. We discussed experimenting and our dreams about great antennas. He was busy building a 6 element logperiodic from which he found some drawings. I helped him when visiting him but I can't remember if he ever had the antenna in use. When I moved out of my parents house in '95 I lost contact and I believe he didn't do anything with the radio hobby anymore. The logper antenna however was still in my mind. And finally in 2002 I decided to give it a try and build this antenna with information I got from some Swedish 11m DXers.

I lived in a very small house and some of the work has to be done just in my living room. Living alone at that time I didn't care. Outside was also small, all work had to be done on a few square meters. 








According to the building guide the antenna was fed by a balun. Detailed drawings and descriptions were found. 

This antenna was mounted first on a short pole to test and tune it. 






I didn't really care what people in the neighbourhood would think of it :-). I can tell that in this (low) position I made a QSO with a station from Indonesia, my report was 59+. I was happy with the result. But of course it should be in the tower. For that I got some help from a friend and his wife. Otherwise I couldn't get the tower up, it was too heavy.




At that time I was not allowed on 10m yet. So DX was made on 11m. I can tell that much DX was made with this antenna. Especially to stations in the pacific. Later on I bought the house across the street. I mounted this antenna on the versatower in 2006. I then discovered it was a solid performer on 10m as well. The balun however did not survive the weather, although enclosed in a box. I replaced it by the Diamond BU-50 which I currently use in my multiband squalo.

Last time I used this antenna was in the winter of 2011. 

The antenna was demolished by a large storm in 2012. 

Till today I still use parts from this antenna in other projects. For example some of the tubing has been used to fed the wires through in my solarpanel installation.

2 comments:

MadDogMcQ said...

Hi Bas, I don’t always comment, but I always love to read your antenna posts because your great enthusiasm for experimenting comes across very well, which encourages me to get off my backside and do some experimenting of my own (on a MUCH smaller scale of course).

I look forward to more :-)

73, Tom, M7MCQ
www.m7mcq.com

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello Tom, tnx for your comment. At least I know then that people read this actually. This blog is also my own archive. Have been doing lots of things and I think I will continue till the end. Inspiration also came from G4ILO Julian who unfortunately is SK. He did lots of experimenting. Sometimes experiments fail, but we learn from it. If things work we learn from that as well. You can do all kind of thing. From building a transceiver and modifying it to your own needs (you have been doing that) to running some software and building all kind of antennas. This hobby is never coming to an end. 73, Bas