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Enrico Rossi


new hamradio antennas

In the beginning of this year I restart one of my oldest hobbies, ham-radio. It was not my intention to invest a lot of effort into it so I brought two vertical antennas, one for the HF and the other for VHF and UHF.

HF antenna is a Falcon D-original OUT-250-B (10-80mt) and, let’s say, it works. Nothing special about it, apart from it has a reasonable price. I think it is the right antenna when you don’t know what you are looking for. Naturally if you have enough space for a dipole, it is probably better in terms of price vs quality, but I didn’t.

The other antenna is a wide band Discone Proxel D130. I was undecided between something only for ham-radio or something that can work on ham-radio bands plus a wider reception range. Honestly, I’m still undecided, anyway the discone works and it has almost no SWR in the ham-bands.

Then it came the installation part and I was surprise I didn’t find many infos regarding the way people install their antennas. In particular I was looking for a way to use those iron/steel belt around the roof wooden stick (I’m not sure of what is exactly the English term).

The general idea was:

  • Do not spend more money in the antenna installation than in the antenna itself.
  • Do not make permanent modification to the building that cannot be undone since it’s a rent apartment (ok for the little hole for the cables).

Installation results:

HF antenna first installation

antenna picture

Vertical antenna

antenna picture

Vertical antenna

Wooden stick deployment

… but not connected to the antenna yet!

antenna pictures
antenna pictures
antenna pictures
antenna pictures
antenna pictures
antenna pictures

Discone antenna and the junction

final result.

antenna pictures
antenna pictures

Cables

The antennas are connected to the radio using two 40mt RG-213 cables, which unfortunately is quite long. On UHF the losses using such cable is too high and the Discone perform worst that a portable antenna installed on top of the radio.

Lesson learned

  • Long cable can lose the gain of an external, better positioned, antenna. Think of the installation to keep the cables short.
  • If you don’t plan to use the antennas together at the same time, consider using a switch and a single cable.