This is one of my first posts from when I got licensed. I have left it here as it may be of use to someone…
I have wanted to give HF a try since getting my licence, but have not got round to putting up an antenna like the G5RV. So I decided to try and make a dipole, that will fit in the loft, for 20 metres. The loft here is quite small, so I used two 1.5litre water bottles, as coil formers, and wrapped whatever amount of wire was neccesary to get this thing to resonate at 14MHz and fit in my loftspace.
I started off with about 6 metres of wire per element, with 15 turns on each bottle and cut them bit by bit, until the antenna analyzer showed it resonant at 14.1MHz. I even left the two ends drooping down a couple of feet. After plugging this into my tranciever, and tuning to some RTTY stations, I decided to give it a go. Running 10 watts, I replied to someones CQ call, and was totally amazed when I see my callsign coming back! This guy was OK2AOP in the Czech Republic, some 808 Miles from my QTH. This was on the 8/5/2007, and from then until today (11/5/2007) I have made contact on RTTY and PSK31 to over 40 other stations, using this antenna. Places include Russia, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, Sweeden, Slovenia, Latvia, Switzerland, Serbia, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, and Belarus. Furthest contact so far with this antenna and 10w is Guatemala. 5471 Miles!
Here is some pictures, one with flash one without. I have used only thin wire, so its quite hard to see, also its hard to try and fit it all in the picture, but it gives you some idea!
Get drinking that water!
First RTTY contact.
<070508 11:48:28 TX>
CQ CQ CQ DE M3UKD M3UKD M3UKD PSE K
<070508 11:48:37 RX>
L
M3UKD M3UKD DE OK2AOP OK2AOP PSE KHV << This is where I almost fainted
<070508 11:48:56 TX>
Q
HELLO MY FRIEND OM THANKS FOR THE CALL.
UR RST IS 599 599
MY NAME IS JOHN JOHN, QTH IS LONDON LONDON, ENGLAND.
HOW COPY? 0K2AOP DE M3UKD TU SK
<070508 11:49:25 RX>
Y
M3UKD DE OK2AOP OK2AOP UR 599 TOO N NAME JIRI JIRI
QTH HAVIROV HAVIROV QSLL VY 73
M3UKD DE OK2AOP TU KE
<070508 11:50:00 TX>
FIRST EVER DX ON LOFT ANTENNA!!
OK MY FRIEND JIRI
73 AND THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE NICE CONTACT!
0K2AOP DE M3UKD 73 GL!TU!
<070508 11:50:25 RX>
–
M3UKD DE OK2AOP OK2AOP OK DR JOHN TNX FER ALL,
QSLL SURE VIA BURO OR DIRECT,
VY 73 BEST DX ES MNI LUCK
M3UKD DE OK2AOP TU SK
One of the loading coils. I now know that these could have been much smaller if they were close wound!