10 Meter Antennas

[Steve - K4HX]

Now that 10 meters is coming around, if you don't already have something up  for that band, take a look at two articles on The AM Window. The first gives details on how to build the antenna, a nice 2-element Yagi.  The second is more general and covers several different types of antennas. The info in this article can be scaled to other bands.

Two Element Yagi For 10 Meters by Tom - K1JJ

http://www.amwindow.org/tech/htm/10m2el.htm


Simple Antennas for Ten Meters by K4HX

http://www.amwindow.org/tech/htm/tenmant/tenmant.htm

[WA1GFZ]

44 foot lazy H is a great antenna 40 through 10 meters if you are using wire

[WD8BIL]

Steve i sright. The 2 element works great. I've built the 10 meter beam just as Tom descibes it. I also scaled it up for 15 meters and it works HI HI FB OM!

[K5UJ]

for me it's my 20 m. halfwave dipole center fed with ladder line and matchbox up 35 feet (the dipole is up there not the matchbox hi hi).  broadside to southwest and northeast.  probably get four leaf pattern on 10.  have not been on 10 in a few years.  lotsa fun when it is open and 30 watts is plenty.

[KW4DE]

I use an old shortened Maco V-Quad (delta loop) beam.  It's light, easy to mount and turn, works good at low height.  Mounted for horz. polarization it outperforms my wide spaced 3 el yagi when the band is marginal. 
Darrell KF4DX

[W4AAB]

I am planning to build two Bi-Squares for 10m and hang them off the side of the tower at 50 feet.I am also constructing a 2-element Delta Quad for 20m.

[Steve - K4HX]

Good stuff. Always interesting to see what others are running or planning. Keep 'em coming!

By the way, you guys wanting a FB antenna find an old V-Quad Maco beam, otherwise a delta loop with reflector, shorten it about a foot, tune the gamma, mount it horizontal and have fun.

What's the going price on these used?

[WA1GFZ]

Gee, I have a spider quad center mount. Maybe I'll bring it to Deerfield.

[WD8BIL]

What's the going price on these used?

Some of the CB 1/2 wave and 5/8 wave verticals are fun to play with on 10 meters. I guess you can pick some up on epay for $50-$100.
The old Antenna Specialists M400 Starduster was real popular in Northern Ohio in the mid to late 70s for 10 meter ops.
I used an old Avanti Astro Plane and worked DX on a regular bases back then. I saw one on Craig's List for $40.

[K1JJ]

Some good ideas. I'd be curious how those pair of bi-squares work out on 10M.


The old 2el stacked 10M Yagis have morphed into this homebrew stack at 33', 66' and 99' :  (On swing gates that cover 300 degrees)


T  

[KB2WIG]

 "  The old 2el stacked 10M Yagis have morphed into this homebrew stack at 33', 66' and 99' :  (On swing gates that cover 300 degrees)  "



T,

I hate you.

klc

[K5IIA]

tom needs to setup a rig that you can remote operate and charge 10 cents a minute or what ever hahaha. try a station at your qth a few times, if ya cant get him, log into the remote k1jj maul .com  site and talk all the dx you want.

[K1JJ]

OK, OK... if you guys MUST know, here's the secret to ham radio humility:

[K1DEU]

Tom I got to see a Gotham Vertical + B&W loading coil in person on Nantucket  in 1958 hooked to a DX-100.  It was stuck right in the Salt water and he could work the cape ground wave  5x5  to 5x8. Not many had a trailer 3 feet from high tide !

 What are your favorite swing gates ? John, K1DEU

[K1JJ]

What are your favorite swing gates ?

John,

Yes, the Gotham vertical... as the old story goes, the Gotham was my first antenna as a new Novice. I called CQ for three days without an answer...  

The swing gates you see are homebrewed from scrap yard steel using an arc welder. I've made them for most of my Yagis.   But there is a vendor from Ohio, I think, who has ads out there somewhere. They look pretty strong, though are not reinforced as much as I did mine.

Here's some close ups of 20M Yagi gates if you wish to duplicate one. Notice the method I use to hang them on the tower using 2" steel pipe stubs welded to brackets. The gates sit on the bottom stub and the top stub holds it in place. Grease inside both housings and swings smoothly. Notice how the Yagi boom's overhead trussing anchors to the center swing gate mast. 

These Yagis will turn 300 degrees around the tower. I use a strong rope for each anchored to the ground. I hate rotators and wud go for a rotating tower first

BTW, those 20M Yagis each weigh about 300 pounds each. Axe Gary, Steve and Johnny (and me) after we lugged them to the tower for staging.


** That new 190' tower of yours is just begging for a stack of 10-20M log periodics with a 40M Yagi to boot....

T

[WU2D]

I have used several antennas on 10M. It is hard to beat the old fashioned ground plane for a simple low angle radiator. My last one was off the kids swing set! It was simply a steel conduit and 5 radials. 

My last 10M antenna was a rectangular full wave loop hung vertical and fed at the bottom for a good 50 Ohm match and a horizontal polarization.
http://kt4qw.com/acan1bu.htm

Another good antenna is the 5/8 ground plane with a coil match with several horizontal radials at the 10 ft level.

Finally an 80 degree Vee beam with 120 ft wires works good on 10M with a quarter wave matching stub and a 4:1 balun. If you use an open half wave stub, you can short the end and use the antenna on 20M too as a shorted stub. I was able to find a feedpoint that allowed a great match on both bands simply by opening and closing a small knife switch hanging off the end of the 17 ft stub just within reach.

[WA1GFZ]

When I was 15 or 16 on vacation at Giants Neck I met a guy who was staying down the street. He had a TR3 or TR4 connected to a gotham. We worked a pile of DX that week with it plugged into the ground just outside the house.

[KM1H]

Tom, are those 10M a standard design or did you do it on the PC?.

Im thru with the 4 high stacks of 4 el and want to go with just one single yagi with under a 30' boom.

Worked the VU4 on 10 the other day with half a reflector and 2nd director.

[K3ZS]

To use the lazy-H on more that one band, you can't use the feedline scheme shown in the Amwindow article.    Use distributed feed that is not frequency dependent and make the elements for the lowest frequency band.    Check out this website for more info:

http://www.w8ji.com/curtain sterba USIA array.htm

[K3ZS]

This may work better, can't seem to copy the website address right:

http://www.w8ji.com/curtain%20sterba%20USIA%20array.htm

[K1JJ]

Tom, are those 10M a standard design or did you do it on the PC?.

Im thru with the 4 high stacks of 4 el and want to go with just one single yagi with under a 30' boom.

Worked the VU4 on 10 the other day with half a reflector and 2nd director.

Hi Carl,

All the Yagis here were designed using Yagi Optimizer (electrical) and Yagi Stress (mechanical) software. Notice the 20M Yagi elements sit on fiberglass boom to ele mountings to keep boom currents out of the equation.

I kinda agree about the single Yagis at times. The most fun I ever had on 10M was with a simple 2el Yagi, stacked three, fixed on USA for 10M AM. Very broad horizontal and simple design.

I rmember Arnold always ran single Yagis and commented that stacks are a waste. Really, all they do is fatten the lowest lobe by eliminating the higher lobes, producing less fading at the lowest DX  angle. The added gain is not much.

When the stack works, it realy works. The difference to the reference dipole is enormous. But when angles get higher, the stack has holes.

The older we get, the simpler we like out antennas for maintenance - and single yagis are a good compromise.

T

[KM1H]

With a voice like one

Tom, I have YO here also. Is it in the library or would you send me the file?

The good thing about stacks is that each antenna has a null angle somewhere and when you can switch enough combinations you fill in those holes. They are great for contests where you have to be able to hold a run frequency or follow the propagation to the next skip zone or be able to bust a pileup real quick.

Maintenance here was always a PITA with the 4el top KLM 40 but the other bands survived for over 20 years....all HB....which is more than I can say for many of the credit card contesters in the area...... and I didnt waste time on Leesons book

[WA1GFZ]

I ran a 2 element quad for 19 years. It really worked well on 10 meters. I had a feedline for each band.
WARC pushed me to a LPDA.

[w5omr]

Was at a local ham store today, and just happened to pick up the latest copy of QST that was laying on the counter.  What got my attention (since I'm not a member of -any- "organization" related to operating ham radio) was an article about 'Nesting Delta Loops'.  My immediate thought was 'why?' 

Basically, if you've got room for a full length inverted Vee on 75m, you've got room for a Delta Loop.  Feed it with open-wire-line and an impedance matching device, and you've got -one- antenna that works all bands the impedance matching device can handle, 75m and up in frequency.

I know of a guy (Jon/AD5HR) who lashed up a hair-pin tuner to match 144.200 SSB to a 75m square loop.  First crack outta the box, worked an XE2 somewhere south of the Arizona/New Mexico border.  Pretty respectable distance from South Central Texas!

Yet another reason I don't read QST.

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Was at a local ham store today, and just happened to pick up the latest copy of QST that was laying on the counter.  What got my attention (since I'm not a member of -any- "organization" related to operating ham radio) was an article about 'Nesting Delta Loops'.  My immediate thought was 'why?' 

Basically, if you've got room for a full length inverted Vee on 75m, you've got room for a Delta Loop.  Feed it with open-wire-line and an impedance matching device, and you've got -one- antenna that works all bands the impedance matching device can handle, 75m and up in frequency.

I know of a guy (Jon/AD5HR) who lashed up a hair-pin tuner to match 144.200 SSB to a 75m square loop.  First crack outta the box, worked an XE2 somewhere south of the Arizona/New Mexico border.  Pretty respectable distance from South Central Texas!

Yet another reason I don't read QST.

The title of the article is: "Nested Full Wave Delta Loops for 20 and 10 Meters". Nothing to do with 75 meters. Further, within the first paragraph, the author indicates that his present location is situated on a very narrow lot so he probably doesn't have room for much.