Dipole Antenna:
A dipole antenna is a horizontal half wave wire fed in the middle using a coaxial cable. The typical city lot is large enough for a 40 meter or higher dipole antennas, but generally not for lower the frequency bands such as 80 meters.
Click here for more information about dipole antennas from the American Radio Relay League.
15 Meter Ground Plane Vertical Antenna:
Vertical antennas form a widely used form of radio antenna. Used in a number of specific areas, their properties e8nable them to provide performance that horizontal or other antennas are unable to provide. One downside is that they capture more atmospheric and man-made noise mainly because they are omni-directional while horizontal antennas are mostly bi-directional.
As a Novice, I built a 15 meter vertical antenna with multiple wires connected to the base of the antenna. These are referred to as radials. Together, this configuration is referred to as a ground plane antenna.
I bought a couple used commercially built vertical antennas that were multi-band, meaning they were resonant at multiple frequencies. One of them was a Hy-Gain 14AVQ antenna that operated on 10, 15, 20, and 40 meters.
When i had an HF transceiver in a vehicle, I used the Hustler mobile antenna system the consisted of separate resonators for the 80 through 10 meter bands.
I also used various types of commercial vertical mobile antennas for the VHF and UHF bands.
Click here for more information about vertical antennas from the American Radio Relay League.
End Fed Random Wire Antenna:
Due to the limited space at our Westminster, California home, I was only able to install a random length wire antenna. The ‘random’ length meant it wasn’t a length that was resonant on the HF bands. It used a 9:1 unun (unbalanced to unbalanced) matching device. The antenna seemed to operate well, but the electrical noise level was so high it made it very challenging to operate on the 80 and 40 meter bands, which are my favorites.
I put up a random wire antenna after our move to Arizona. This allows me to operate the HF bands from 160-10 meters. It was about 124 feet long and works fairly well.
160 Meter Loop
Our move to Dewey, Arizona has provided space to install a long wire antenna. I have installed a 520 foot, one wavelength horizontal loop antenna. It has a 4:1 current balun, which allows use on the 160 to 6 meter bands..
