The AM Forum

OK it's up and aparently it works because I just talked to V31ME "Mex" on Ambergris Caye (island), Belize on 14.265, me using a 100W Icom ss box.
Didn't get much conversation, it's a IOTA contest so I didn't want to keep him and went and filled in some info on QRZ so he can claim the contact.

Anyway if a 100W ssb radio works that well then things should be improving around here once other radios and or amplifiers are ready. I was also able to hear people on both coasts, and in Oklahoma.

It was possible after all to put up all 4 legs of the Tekrad Mark-V 'dipole'. I dont know why it works so well but it does. It seems to be broadband in some ways as well, except on 80M where the tuner needed more than just a little readjustment from 3.55 to 3.9 MHz tests.

I'll google the TEKRAD and see what happens. I'm assuming a 80-20M and needs a tuner that can deal with open ladder.
OOPS Google does not turn up anything for TEKRAD. I saw TEKND.
Might this be something from 1968? Some PDF 9 megs big tries its best to download and there may be something in that website.

Before last Summer I built the HGSW antenna "as seen in QST". It was every bit as good as my A3S Yagi 70 feet up. For the two directions. It is a dipole with tuned networks, just hangin' a 13 foot piece of ladder line, and pre-measured points to create a gain antenna of sorts. It was a High gain single wire antenna. It was not magic and a waste of time. The author actually modeled it from the computer.

http://www.infoark.org/InfoArk/Science-Engineering/Radio/Antennas/High%20Gain%20Single%20Wire%20Beam-Wilson_2009-07.pdf

Can you give a link to your design, Patrick?
Fred

Perhaps a volunteer with EZNEC chops can model the thing??

                 _-_-bear

I have never found any info on the company. I took pics of the owners manuals. That's the best I can do as the scanner driver seems to have disappeared. Good riddance I hate paper port software products anyway. Love the Xerox scanner. Dislike that awful clunky software they supplied with the scanner.

Anyway attached is a readable copy of the manual that came in thebox, plus another manual that is more explanatory.

It sure works better than anything else I have used, but then you guys know what awful antennas I have had, and have never heard me on the air due to that. Nonetheless, Belize with 100W seems like a miracle to me.

A couple notes about how I have disobeyed the exact instructions, for any EZNEC modelers out there.
I did not install any radials.
I did not install the antenna with the ends the same height as the center, as the instructions said to do.
The 'like' or "same polarity" ends are about 30FT apart.
This was all dictated by the site.

OK it's an attempt at a "fat" dipole or a partial biconical. In all pertinent aspects it's a dipole. Even the manual says it's essentially omnidirectional. It will be more broadband than a dipole but will not radiate any more signal than a dipole of similar length. It would be interesting to see some SWR sweeps over the HF range.

Congratulations on getting your antenna up. Have fun!

You would likely be better off (assuming your have the height) to use a pair of stacked dipoles (SD). You have as much gain (actually more at lower angles) at the peak and much wider lobes (better coverage). At just 20 degrees off center, the SD is 6-8 dB better than the HGSW. And best of all the take-off (TO) angle of the SD is 17 degrees versus 29 for the HGSW.

Believe it or not, I finally now nearly 2 years later received the QSL card in reply to mine, from this special IOTA station I tuned in for the January 2011 antenna test. He (Max) got over 10,000 contacts as stated in a letter with it.. wow. I was not expecting it after so long. Wasn't unhappy about it or anything, and it was a nice surprise to get a foreign card in return for one of my own. hard tothink the dipole's been up 2 years. Not a lick o' trouble out of it.