Antenna informtion needed

Ok that brings an interesting thought,
When building a multiband antenna, multiple elements can be attached to
the same feed point and the element cut closest to the resonant freq
will radiate.
I did this with an old HF radio for 20, 40 and 80M.

Is that what you're doing with the three strands of wire?
One say 19.5, the next 20 and the longest at 20.5 inches?
One should be resonant somewhere in the band?

Also, I read that should I use a torid (SP) and put a loop of coax to
keep reflections down.

Sound good?

If I don't have a vswr meter around should I be pretty safe using this
configuration?

Thanks for the help!

Dave


Jim Weir wrote:

dave
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:

-Hey Jim Thanks!
-
-Maybe I should just build him a generic dipole out of wire or copper tape.
-How do you get the bandwidth wider, use a wider conductor?

That is correct. The "fatter" the conductor the wider the bandwidth. You can
do a pretty fair job with two or three strands of bare copper wire (stripped
romex) in parallel for each arm of the dipole. The problem is that the fatter
the wire (or the apparent wire) the shorter will be the elements. I know that
½" copper tape centers up pretty nice with a length around 20½". If you use
bare copper, you might cut one of them a half inch longer and one of them half
an inch shorter and see what happens.

-
-Also, my only vswr meter is a old radioshack one for use in the 10 meter
- range, can I retrofit it to work in the 120 mhz area?

9 out of 10 of those old CB VSWR meters aren't worth a darn in the aircraft
band. It is catchascatchcan as to whether yours is going to be "good" or not.
One easy way to tell is to calibrate it with a few known good antenna
installations and see if the CB meter comes even CLOSE to a known good meter.

Jim


Jim Weir (A&P/IA, CFI, & other good alphabet soup)
VP Eng RST Pres. Cyberchapter EAA Tech. Counselor
http://www.rst-engr.com