I used to hang with a guy whose stepfather was into ham radio a bit. I told the stepfather about some of the things that I used to listen to and he once told me a of story he heard or read about.
There was some lady in Germany who built a homemade 1500 METER long longwire antenna.
I told him that it is physically possible, but theoretically unuseful.
Back when I playing with radio I used to get me long wire up high, etc etc. A relative who had been an army lad came out on a field trip. I started to set up the long wire. "What you doing?" "Getting it up high." "We tossed them on the ground in the army. Try it." Sure enough, on 80 metres the long just tossed on the ground seemed to work as well as a dipole that took 5 times longer to rig up.
Over the years i have put up all manner o hf aerials...the one i settled on 15 years ago was a doublet 75 feet on each leg.....use this on my clansman vrc321 with auto atu..........outperforms every other aerial i have tried............ JIM tYLEE
try a delta lopp antenna,you have a very large garden,would fit in no bother,and you will get much less ground noise and qrn ,the long wire i found very noisey and rf in the shack was a problem,look into a deltal loop type antenna,you wound look back.
The wire is 50 meters long @ about 25 meters from the ground.
The earth system consists of a 5 foot solid copper earth stake with lot and lots of radials.
I have quarter wave lengths cut for each for band from insulated wire pegged down in the garden, within weeks the grass grew up passed it and they have sunk into the ground.
There quite a few cut for each band.
I also have a ground mat which is 20 foot by 4 foot chicken mesh.
@dpsdoeo If I disconnect the balun from the earth/counterpoise array then it does not tune well, equally if I disconnect the earth from the atu it also does not like it.
I'll make a video in the next week to show you exactly what the Longwire is made out of.
Basically its like the outer of coax made from stainless steel and instead of a center wire its like a cord made from kevlar all covered in a rubbery green plastic.
So its like stainless braid with a very strong unstretchable string inside.
The green makes it nearly invisible against trees
I'll show you in the video how they were originally used by the british army.
I used to hang with a guy whose stepfather was into ham radio a bit. I told the stepfather about some of the things that I used to listen to and he once told me a of story he heard or read about.
There was some lady in Germany who built a homemade 1500 METER long longwire antenna.
I told him that it is physically possible, but theoretically unuseful.
nakedfaves 1 month ago
Back when I playing with radio I used to get me long wire up high, etc etc. A relative who had been an army lad came out on a field trip. I started to set up the long wire. "What you doing?" "Getting it up high." "We tossed them on the ground in the army. Try it." Sure enough, on 80 metres the long just tossed on the ground seemed to work as well as a dipole that took 5 times longer to rig up.
ColFingers 1 year ago
Over the years i have put up all manner o hf aerials...the one i settled on 15 years ago was a doublet 75 feet on each leg.....use this on my clansman vrc321 with auto atu..........outperforms every other aerial i have tried............ JIM tYLEE
jimtylee 1 year ago
try a delta lopp antenna,you have a very large garden,would fit in no bother,and you will get much less ground noise and qrn ,the long wire i found very noisey and rf in the shack was a problem,look into a deltal loop type antenna,you wound look back.
battlestarone 2 years ago
I also have a ground mat which is 20 foot by 4 foot chicken mesh which has also disapeared into the ground.
The long wire tunes 1.1 across all bands from 160 meters to 10 meters.
It out performs my hustler and is not much diferent to the performance of my dipoles.
Hope this answers your question
73 and good DX
M6RKY
Marky
markbeermonster 2 years ago
Hi There
The wire is 50 meters long @ about 25 meters from the ground.
The earth system consists of a 5 foot solid copper earth stake with lot and lots of radials.
I have quarter wave lengths cut for each for band from insulated wire pegged down in the garden, within weeks the grass grew up passed it and they have sunk into the ground.
There quite a few cut for each band.
I also have a ground mat which is 20 foot by 4 foot chicken mesh.
markbeermonster 2 years ago
@markbeermonster What if you did't use grounding at all? Will this setup work?
dpsdoeo 1 year ago
@dpsdoeo If I disconnect the balun from the earth/counterpoise array then it does not tune well, equally if I disconnect the earth from the atu it also does not like it.
markbeermonster 1 year ago
@dpsdoeo I made a video for you today, check out my latest video called "Improved Long wire Antenna position with LDG 4-1 Balun"
M0VST
markbeermonster 1 year ago
@markbeermonster Also what tuner do you use? Is it a tuner or a coupler?
dpsdoeo 1 year ago
@dpsdoeo I use a Palstar AT2K to do the tuning, but via an LDG 4-1 balun just outside the shack to reduce RF in the shack
markbeermonster 1 year ago
how long? and whats the earth system like ?
m3xlipat 2 years ago
Is Clansman Kevlar a type of coax cable?
Jamiep84 2 years ago
Hi there Jamiep84
I'll make a video in the next week to show you exactly what the Longwire is made out of.
Basically its like the outer of coax made from stainless steel and instead of a center wire its like a cord made from kevlar all covered in a rubbery green plastic.
So its like stainless braid with a very strong unstretchable string inside.
The green makes it nearly invisible against trees
I'll show you in the video how they were originally used by the british army.
73
M6RKY
markbeermonster 2 years ago
Beautiful wide field
Lucky man
amateursradio 2 years ago
Watch this space for the latest Longwire setup using my homebrew antenna launcher
markbeermonster 2 years ago