KSSYUs 75and10-Meter
)ole
Ongettinglicensed,
upgrading and
enteringthewide
worldof HF.
Jn June 2000, I retired after 36 years
I of teaching and moved from Con-
Inecticut to my native state of Michi-
gan. At first, my days were completely
consumedwith getting settled into our
houseand working aroundthe lawn and
gardens.It wasn't easy,but it was fun.
As Labor Day approached,I had the
feeling that it was time to get ready for
school.The outdoor work, while not over,
was undercontrol. I had time for me, and
becauseI wouldn't be teachingI decided
to be the student.
Chuck, K8CH, had receivedhis first
ham license while we were still dating.
Back then, I learned a phrasein Morse
code becausehe would tap it out on my
hand during church. Even today, I can
recognize"f love you honey" at 25 wpm
but I'm not sure if I'd recognizemy own
call sign at that speed.A few yearslater,
I remembersitting in a schoolgymnasium
with my husbandof nearly a year as he
handled messagesfor the Red Cross. It
was interesting, but it wasn't for me-
not then. I was a full-time student at
Michigan StateUniversity, and my first
son was on the way.
For 40 years I had watchedChuck en-
joy operating his radio, and I knew he
would like to share that with me. I too
wantedto shareit with him. It looked like
fun, and now I finally had the time for
Amateur Radio. Being a wife, mother and
bilingual (Spanish) special-education
teacher had been very demanding of my
time. I decided to go for my Technician
classlicense.We had a copy of Now You're
Talking!on the bookshelf.l I spentabout
an hour a day studying,and in the process
setthe goal of achieving l00%oon the exam.
In February2001,I met my goal, pass-
lNotesappearon page34.
32 July 2002 qs+=_
ing the exam with a perfect score.
(Thanks,HQ staff who wrote the book!)
The first thing I did as a new ham was to
sendmy money and applicationfor life
membershipin ARRL. The secondwas
to apply for a vanity call sign. I didn't
want to be KCSQKB if I could be, say,
K8SYL. Then I checkedinto the Ionia
County ARES (ICARES) net on the
N8ZMT repeaterin Portland,Michigan.
That's somethingI continue to do regu-
larly. I had met these folks at their
monthly Saturday morning breakfast
meetings.They were all supportiveand
mademe feel welcome.
Oneof the ICARES group is long-time
family friend DonnaBurch, W8QOY.As
soon as I had that Technicianclass li-
cense,she and Myriam Gregg, K8ILN,
began to encourageme to upgrade to
General.I would have 75-meter privi-
legesand could join The Auto StateYL
Net (TASYLS).That soundedlike fun and
besidesI was ready to learn more code
than "I love you honey."
Time to study for that General.Back
to the books,this time The ARRLGeneral
ClassLicenseManual.2I set the same
lOUVo goal for the written examasbefore,
andthanksagainto Larry, WRIB, andthe
ARRL HQ staff, I reachedthat goal.
I had learnedthe Morse charactersa
long time before,but now I neededto re-
learn the charactersand build some pro-
ficiency. Chuck downloadedthe program
Morse Academy from the Internet and I
got started.Soon after, we orderedMorse
Tutor Gold softwarefrom ARRL and that
becamemy favorite learning tool. Once
my code speedbeganto approach5 wpm,
I startedusing W1AW code practice. I
particularly liked the Real Audio files
availableonline at: www.arrl.org/w1ad
morse.html. Those files allowed me to
listen at my convenience.For other code
learning ideas check out www.arrl.org/
FandES/ead/Iearncd on ARRLWeb.
MyFirstHFAntenna
With my new General class license
about to arrive, I wantedantennasfor 75
and 10 meters.With help from Chuck, I
put togethera 120-footcenter-feddipole
and we installed it about 35 feet high.
This allowed me to join the other mem-
bers of the TASYLs on their weekly 75
meter (3940 kHz) net. With leg lengths
of 60 feet, my dipole was resonant at
3.900MHz and the 2:1 SrWRpoints were
at 3.830and 3.980; seeFigure l. It was
good enough for my purposes, so we
didn't botherpruning it further.
I was doing very well on 75 meters,
but what was I to do for 10?Chuck had a
partially built lO-meterground-planean-
tenna in the basementthat he was build- 2 . 4 :1
ing for the book he was writing.3 That
was nice, but that ground plane wasn't /
2 . 2 :1
going to do me much good until it was 7

finished and he was working on other

chapters.I wasn't going to wait. One af- 2:1 \ /
I

ternoonI was tuning acrossthe l0-meter

band when I heard KP4NU calling CQ /
1 . 8 :1
\
from Caguas,PuertoRico.I really wanted
to havea QSO in Spanish,so I did what \ /
you would probably do-I called Josd 1 . 6 :1 \ I
using my 75-meterdipole (after first en- \
7

/
gaging the internal antennatuner in my
\ /
transceiver).I had a nice QSO. Was it 1.4:1
/
luck, good conditions or what? After I \ /
braggedaboutmy contact,IaskedChuck \ t
1 . 2 :1
what he thought about it.

TheExplanation 1 : 1
We both knew that a dipole is reso- 3.88 3.9 3.92 3.96
nanton odd harmonics(3rd, 5th, 7th, etc), Frequency(MHz)
but 28 MHz is 8 times 3.5 MHz. That's
true, but my dipole is cut for the high end Figure I-SWR of KSSYL'soriginal 7S-meterdipote with 6Gfoot legs.
of the band-closer to 4 MHz. Hmm, 4
times 7 is28, and harmonicresonanceis
higher than one would expect. In other
words,while you might expectthat a 75-
meter antennathat is resonantat 3940
kHz would have a 7th harmonic reso-
nanceat 27.58 MHz, it will actuallybe
@
over a MHz higher.
We both understoodthe theory,but to
for VF = 66%
better answermy questionsChuck next l = 5'9n
connectedour MFJ-259B analyzerto the
for VF = 78o/o
antennafeed line. The analyzershowed t = 6'9.5"
a resonance just below 29 MHz with an
SWR of lessthan 3:1. He then modeled
my antennain EZNEC, which confirmed
what the analyzerhadjust shown.At this
point there were two options. The first
was to leave well enough alone and use
the transceiver'sautomaticantennatuner.
The secondoption wasto makemy 75-
meter antennausableon l0 meterswith- Figure 2-KBSYLIS_dipole as first modified tor 75 and lO-meter operation. A quarter-
wave section of 75-O coax transforms the lGmeter impedance. Capacitance-hat wires
out the need of an antennatuner. That's wrap securely around the dipole and are soldered.They extend about 5 inches from the
what we opted to do. main dipole wire. See text for tuning instructions and final dimensions.This drawing is
not to scale.
The Design
We had to deal with two issuesin or- operation,RG-59 can substitute.The that's lower than what I wanted.I asked
der to use my dipole on l0 meters.The physical length of the stub dependson if we could find a method to lower the
first was to improve the l0-meter match the velocity factor.My RG-l1 (Belden lO-meterresonancewithout substantially
without upsetting 75-meter operation. 8238) has a 66Vovelocity factor, which moving the 75-meterresonantfrequency?
The secondwas to movethe dipole's l0- meansthe stub is 5 feet, 9 incheslong. If Chuck had an affirmative answer.
meter resonancepoint a bit lower in the you use75-0 coax with a78Vovelocity He told me that Rus Healy had de-
band. factor such as Belden 8213 or 8212, scribedadding capacitancehats on a 40-
At resonanceon l0 meters,the feed- you'll needto makeyour stub6 feet,9.5 meter dipole to move the 3rd harmonic
point impedanceis about I2O A. We used incheslong. resonancelower in the lS-meter band.a
a calculator to confirm that a quarter- I had built my antennato cover the We could usea similar techniqueto lower
wave transformermade with 75-Q coax upper(Generalclass)end of the 75-meter the 7th harmonic resonanceof the 75-
would take care of the lO-meter imped- band. Chuck and I thought about length- meter dipole. In the caseof my antenna,
ancematch.At the sametime, the length ening the dipole to move 10-meterreso- EZNEC indicated that it took only the
of this coaxial transformer is short nanceto the vicinity of 28.4 MHz. The little bit of loading provided by a pair of
enough to have no significant effect on EZNEC model saidit would only require short (3-inch) wires on each leg of the
the antenna's75-meteroperation. 4.5-inch extensionsto each dipole leg. dipole. We modified my 75-meterdipole
I used RG- I I to build the series- The downsideto this is that it movesthe as shown in Figure 2. It was easy, and
matching transformer.For low-power 75-meterresonanceto 3.89 MHz. and tune-upwent smoothly.

fs+ July 2002 33

Tuning the Antenna
First I'm going to explainthe process
to follow in tuning this two-banddipole.
Then I'll tell you how it worked for me.
With the 75-Q quarter-wavetrans-
former sectionin place,tune the antenna
for resonancein the upperpart of the 75-
meterband.As I found out throughexpe-
rience,you shoulddo your tuningwith the
antennain its final position.You'll need
to trim for best SWR aboveabout 3.89
MHz or you're apt to losesomel0-meter
coverage. If you tunefor about3.925MHz,
you shouldcoverthe entire Generalclass
bandof 3.850to 4.000MHz with an SWR
of 2:l or better.
Next, checkthe lO-meterresonantfre-
quency.(For the dipole dimensionsgiven
in Figure 2, it wasjust below 29 MHz.)
If you need to lower that frequency,add
the capacitancehats as shown in the
drawing.You may want to makethe wires
a bit longer to start with. Check the reso-
nant frequency again-it will be lower.
To raise the frequency you can trim the
fingers of the capacitancehat or you can
just bend them a bit. It's that easy-at
leastin theory.
Chuck used the support mast for my
dipoleto hold a 2-elementl7-meterYagi
(a project for his book). That meantwe
had to move my dipole, and it endedup
being only 28 feet above the ground.
Between that move and the addition of
the 75-Q quarter-wavetransformer,my
dipole's 75-meterresonantfrequency
shiftedanotherZOkHzlower. To compen-
sate,I endedup shorteningeachleg by 8
inches,making the leg lengths59 feet 4
inches.This gaveme an SWR of 2:1 or
better acrossthe entire Generalclasspor-
tion of the 75-meterband (seeFigure 3).
As you might guess,that raisedthe 10-
meterresonantfrequencysothat the simple
loading wires were not sufficient to give
me goodSWR atthe lowerendof theband.
I useda coupleof l6-inch lengthsof bare
copper wire to make capacitancehats. I
formedtheseinto circlesby wrappingthem
arounda piece of 4-inch PVC drainpipe.I
thenfastenedandsolderedthe circlesto the
loading wires as shown in the title photo.
As you can see,I didn't bother to trim the
extra loading wire. This gaveme coverage
of 28 to 29.1MHz with an SWR of 2:1 or
better,as you can seein Figure 4.
TheResults
I havebeenusingmy dual-banddipole
for nearly a year with very good results.
I make 75-meter contacts with ease.
Okay,I don't chaseexoticDX, but I have
no trouble talking with my friends. On
10 meters,I'm ableto makecontactwith
the US and most of the world. Amateur
Radio is really fun!
In caseyou're wondering,Chuckcom-
34 July 2002 Isa
2:1
\
\ /
1 . 8 :1
\ /
1 . 6 :1
/
\ /
\ .a
1.4:1
\
./
\
'1.2:1 \ /
1 : 1
3.84 3.88 3.9 3.92 3.94 3.98 4.0
Frequency(MHz)
Figure3-SWR of the modifiedKBSYLdipoleafterthe two legs havebeenshortened
to 59 feet 4 inches.Thedipole now coversthe entireGeneralclass portion of the
7S-meterband with an SWRof 221or better.
2:1
\
\
1 . 8 :1 ./
\ ./
1 . 6 :1
\ /
\ /
1.4:1 \
\ -/
1.2:1
1 : 1
28.O 28.6
Frequency(MHz)
Figure tt-SWR of the KSSYL dipole covers over 1 MHz ol the lO-meter band with an
SWR of 2=1or better. lf you operate G$ you may want to lower the lGmeter resonant
frequency by adding a bit more loading with larger capacitance hats.
pleted that l0-meter ground-plane antenna performance, but it works very well on 10
shortly after we finished this project. In meters. Perhaps this is what you should
head-to-head comparisons, sometimes his try for your next (or first) HF antenna.
ground plane works better, and sometimes
my dipole comes out ahead. The reason Notes
tL. Wolfgangand J. Kleinman,Now You're
for that is wrapped up in the antenna pat- Talking!,ARRL, Newington,CT, 2000.
terns and angle of arrival of the signals. I 'zL.Wolfgang, The ARRL General Class Li-
could show you the theoretical patterns of censeManual ARRL,Newington,CT,2000.
our antennas, but you will probably put 3C.Hutchinsonand R. D. Straw, Simpleand
yours up in a different configuration. The Fun Antennasfor Hams,ARRL, Newington,
cT,2002.
point for telling you this is to let you know 4J.W. (Rus) Healy,Antenna Here is a Dipole,
that it's always good to have a choice be- QSI, Jun 1991,pp 23-26.
tween antennas-especially when you're
talking about simple antennaslike dipoles In addition to Amateur Radio, the author en-
and verticals. joys reading, gardening and spending time
Around here, we're pretty much con- with family-e specially her granddaughte4
vinced that my dipole has become a per- Briana. Youcan contact Sylvia at 9145 Bliss
manent fixture in our ham station. I'd like Rd, Lake Odessa, MI 48849; k8syl@
to get up it a bit higher for better 75-meter starband.net. IEFEI