40 meters can be a bit of a challenge but Wendy and I went to uh Bude again down in Cornwall and
the bud house um has got a tiny strip of grass at the front of the property and that's it okay
and I never considered that you could we could squeeze an antenna in there but needs must really
and I one day I thought you know what I think I'm gonna rather than going back out in the car
and go portable I'll see if I can lever this um a DX Commander expedition in there so I'll show you
how I got them got well I will show you how I got on doing that then I just want to discuss a cover
a couple of other options that I could have done and that you could do if you got a strip of grass
so this strip of grass is literally not even two meters you know it's four to five feet deep it's
flat anyway I mean well did it work let's have a look let's roll the tape and see how I got
on then we'll come back because I've got an idea of two or three other antennas I could have used
uh here with a bit of wine a bit of coax and a like a dipole connector see how we get on anyway
Richie Hello okay Papa yeah hello Fox Golf Five Golf Papa Guadalupe Alain hello
KE3QVC Hello nice to meet you I've got a kilo again again nice and slowly
okay K1RTO Scott uh K4RAM is that you Greg about five and two over
here K3ELG Eric
okay I have KC3SIN
got it N2YTA you're four and two four okay so that was quite good fun because that was
uh that was at night and um at about midnight one o'clock where Newfoundland was just getting
um dark and then it would have been New York Florida would have would have gone dark as well
I did it I was on the radio again the next day but without a big solar flare or something and
it was a bit of a blackout so it was a bit of a washout but anyway I proved that and I recently
launched a video will it work it was called will it work which is if you can get some RF
into something it'll work right I don't know how well it'll work but I had a really crappy SWR on
20 meters because of the um the stays that went around the decking area made of stainless steel
after about a quarter wave and I think that was getting in the way but anyway so let's just have
a muck around what else we could have done and I'm just going to draw this little patch of land right
for fun and Google Earth is telling me well that there is 11 meters I could have probably fitted
maybe a little bit more maybe 12 13 14 meters but anyway what can you do with a tiny strip
of land if you did want to get onto 40 meters so not so long ago Tom and I built a linear loaded
dipole for 80 meters and how that works is that an 80 meter inverted um inverted V should have
these legs depending on the height above ground a few other variables its legs will be around 19.5
meters each leg okay but what I did is that with a rule of thumb calculation and I'll put the link
to that video underneath here I calculated we could have done we could come back so there's
the feed point down here and we made it 12 and a half meters long 12.5 meters long not 19.5
so that was compact so over here one if you did want to get on 40 meters with a fairly good SWR
curve and all the other variables and we've got you know 10 12 meters to play with just a little
strip of land down by the side of a house or whatever else you could half that 6.25 meters I'll
bet you could make a shorty forty right well you've got your your coax and we'll we'll just come
at the side of you here um I'll draw it up here 6.25 meters but linear load your element so your
element is going to be 12 13 meters long and then to tune it all right all you do is just chop a bit
off slowly until you get the perfect tune at 7.15 7.25 or whatever whatever you're after by the way
if we're looking straight down on this now so it's not inverted V it's just like this there it is
from here to here a shorty 40. linear loaded if it still doesn't fit and you need more room
we'll do this make it a z shape you could have another couple of meters there you come there
and back and there's your feed point because the ends here aren't
actually doing much you're current on a tuned dipole with quarter mid quarter
quarter wavelength legs all right so half wavelength in total your main current your main
RF is actually coming off at the middle all right so this these bits here we'll just be doing the
tuning and I've done all sorts I've gone um I've done inverted V and then one end came this way and
the other end I think went that way you know so it was really strange shape I could draw that on the
m1mm M1 M on M M A N A sorry you know my little drawing uh program that I use for doing this stuff
uh just to demonstrate but we won't not today all right let's keep it easy so one other ways
we've got a simple vertical and we did that one all right and and you just put your radials
like that that would work as well a simple vertical there it is um a linear loaded dipole now
a loop would be very difficult because although you could probably just about squeeze a loop in
all the way around here it's a funny shape okay and it starts to look like a folded dipole the
other way of doing this is um let's draw this again and it's about 10 meters long if you had
um a telescopic pole that you could go up 10 meters and then along and you could get
about 10 meters there and about 10 meters there there's an inverted L for 80 meters and was alive
you get on 80 that way if you went up five and a long five do this again actually this is really
easy you could go to a wood yard and get yourself a 20 foot long banister rail or something um you
know uh 20 feet just under five meters and then just go along a bit to the nearest you know bush
and just trim it to suit inverted L would work you will need some some radials underneath here just
whatever length doesn't matter just couple that sort of to the ground inverted out or an end fed
now an end fed would have to be 20 meters in total length which is actually what I was thinking about
when I started drawing this actually in my back of my mind it was an n-fed but that's
you do need a better lens okay you need half a wavelength for an end fed on 40. but inverted L
that would work really well wouldn't it I mean actually there's a little shed here right so I
try and find a picture if I can you could just bolt a wooden banister rail you know I mean how
much is that not a lot I've done that you see go along inverted oh that'll get you on 40 as well
I can't think of any more right now I think the inverted L would work really well I think a zed
shaped linear loaded 40 meter dipole you should be able to get that in inside seven or eight
meters actually you could really squeeze that in if you would like me to build this Z shape thing
and demonstrate it and do the measurements let me know in the comments and we'll string one up
in the field but straight vertical The Zed as I call it Z shaped dipole linear loaded dipole
inverted L and fed I can't think of anything else a loop I think on a strip of land you're into the
folded dipole bit and I don't think it would work so well all right any any other ideas you've got
stick them in the comments and if you want me to build this Zed thing let me know as well and
we'll give that a go if you've built one of these and had some success or failures let us know as
well always a pleasure all right next video is coming up here thanks for tuning in today it's
been quite good fun this one has a project and I'll see you on the next one bye for now.