My Antennas 1960 through 2022 (highlights only)

My first antenna was an end fed wire with a galvanized pipe in the ground for the ground.

My DX-60 had a pi network and was able to match the wire directly on some bands.

Soon after I built an L network to match it on all bands. I wound a coil about 2 or 2 1/2 inch diameter and about 6 or 8 inches long. I used an old cigar box as the chassis. The coil was on top of the box and I mounted a 140 pf capacitor inside the box. I had a short piece of coax from the transmitter to the cigar box. Eventually I got a Heathkit SWR meter to make the adjustment easier. 

This first wire was about 50 to 70 feet long. It probably worked simply plugged into the DX-60 on 80 meters because it was a quarter wave long. 

Later I tried dipoles, but could not get very high. I then lengthened the wire to around 300 feet. It went from about 15 feet on my house to about 20 feet high (on a pole) 45 feet from the house then 250 feet to the top of a pine tree.

This antenna started with two galvanized pipes as the ground and later I connected a wire to a copper pipe at the outdoor water faucet. This antenna with a substandard ground performed great. I worked a lot of DX on 160 meters, including KH6IJ on 160 meter SSB at 5AM one morning! 

During this period of time I got a Mosley tri-band beam and mounted it on the chimney. 

It seemed to work pretty good. 

Not sure if it had much actual gain but it made a big difference in signal strength when it was rotated.  I think the gain was 5.8 dBd on 20 meters. Not sure how that relates to dBi as I don’t know anything about what Mosley used as their reference dipole or how the 5.8 dBd was measured. 

Later I put up a 70 foot tower with an extension out the top to a height of 108 feet for use as a 160 meter vertical. I used a gamma match to match the tower to RG-8 coax. The only ground was an 8 foot copper rod at the base of the tower. Of course the tower was just a few feet from salt water and was on salty soil. At least once a year the salt water would cover the ground around the tower.  I think that had something to do with it working so well without radials.

On more than one occasion I had a tower/ additional masts out the top making anywhere from 90 to 100 feet of vertical for 160 meters and never with a single radial. This was between 1970 and 1990. 

During this era I had from one to two 70 foot towers topped with first a old Mosley Tribander then with a full size 6 element 10 meter Yagi and later a full size 4 element 20 meter Yagi at 70 feet overlooking marsh land from due north through East and due South. The tower base was less than 10 feet from the marsh.  These antennas were simply outstanding on the band they were made for. I also had a 2 element 15 meter Yagi out of salvaged parts from the Mosley Tri bander. Never compared these antennas to a dipole. I wish I had. 

I did compare a 300 foot long wire running NE/SW to the Mosley Triband Beam and on 10 meters the wire was always better to the NE and SW.  In any other direction the 3 elements of the Mosley was much better if properly pointed. 

This demonstrated the gain of the wire was almost directly off the end when it was about 8 wavelengths long.

In the past 20 years, since 2001, I have used mostly fan dipoles for 40 through 10 meters for both DX-ing and contesting. On 80 I have had great success with a slightly bent 80 meter half square. At one location it was broadside to Europe only. Contest results were very good and I always beat out dipoles and inverted V antennas at 80 feet and higher. At another location I put it up broadside to the Pacific and Japan. In the only contest with that configuration I did very well in the Pacific and Japan but very few European contacts. I then “rotated” the Halfsquare until it was broadside on Europe and the next few contests from that location working Europe was easy but Japan was again hard. 80 meter dipoles never worked very good for me in contests because 60 to 70 feet is low on 80 meters, so I always ended up with a half square. I had moderate success with an inverted L on 80 meters. Better than a dipole but never as good as with the Half Square.

On 160 meters, since 2002, I have used a 165 to 180 foot inverted L with usually 2 radials. Sometimes none (2014-2017) occasionally three (2013-2014).

I worked over 700 QSOs in 160 meter contests with no radials in 2014 and 2017. I worked over 800 with I think three radials but it may have been two in 2013. I definitely worked 874 QSOs with only two radials in 2012. 

On 40 meters I tend to get best results with a Dipole. The inverted L is never better. I tried a 40 meter Half square and except directly broadside, the dipole was always better. Broadside to the half square was only maybe equal to the dipole for a lot more wire and effort. I took the 40 meter half square down and kept the dipole.

On 20 meters, since 1990 I have not had a Yagi on a tower. I have used only dipoles and tried a 2 element wire Yagi once. The dipoles perform quite well, although I would like to directly compare to a 2 element wire Yagi. I did try a 20 meter half square and my high 20 meter dipole always did much better is all directions. I also compared to a low 20 meter dipole, about 20 or 25 feet. It also was always better than the half square. I concluded that the halfsquare was a great 80 meter antenna, not as good but close to a dipole on 40 meters and significantly down from almost any dipole on 20 meters.

On 15 meters I have used dipoles, inverted V and sloping dipoles as well as my 40 meter dipole. In the 2022 CQ WW DX contest, I used both my 40 meter dipole and a temporary 15 meter dipole (actually built for portable use) and found the 15 meter dipole was better in most directions. There were four narrow directions where the 40 meter dipole just beat the dipole and that was at the peak and one side of the four lobes.

Had the orientation of the dipole been different the comparison with the 40 meter dipole would have different results. The 40 meter dipole has 4 major lobes and the dipole only two. Off the front of of the lobes, there is very little peak gain advantage in favor of the 40 meter dipole used on 15 meters. Under ideal conditions the difference in my two antennas was maybe 1 dB. So the increased gain of a 40 meter dipole on 15 is really nonexistent for all practical purposes. If two 15 meter dipoles were constructed at right angles and they were compared to my 40 meter dipole on 15 meters, switching between the two dipoles would always beat or at worst case equal the 40 meter dipole. My plans are to add a 15 meter dipole element to my 20/10 fan dipole and construct a second 20/15/10 fan dipole and install it at or nearly at right angles to the first one. This would give me great coverage on 20/15 and 10 meters. With two dipoles at right angles, there will never be a null. However there will be four directions where the gain will drop as much as 4 dB from the peak gain. In most cases that will hardly be noticed. In my case I would try and not have that be in the direction of a highly populated area, but if it was I would not lose any sleep over it. In actual practice these nulls are never as much as the models predict. The two dipoles at right angles would probably have what would be considered  3dB beam width of 360 degrees. Remember the gain of a dipole at reasonable height is from 7 to 8 dBi off the broadside. So the low point would still be about 4 or 5 dBi. I think That would be significantly better than any single antenna could possibly be. 

On 10 meters, I just used three dipoles in the 2022 ARRL 10 meter contest. I had excellent coverage. Since my existing 10 meter dipoles were not at right angles (far from it) I needed a dipole broadside on the west coast. I added a third dipole just to make sure I could cover that area. As a result I worked 46 of 50 states. I was able to run most of the contest and was called by several KH6 stations in Hawaii as well as being called by several KL7 stations in Alaska. Three of the four states missed were close by East coast stations. Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. The other one was North Dakota. However, I was called by many Canadian Provinces in that general direction.