If a chart such as this was included in the lead post it might have not spurred such a deluge of relatively needless horizontal fan dipole comments.
Insert a hotdog on each wire, place radio on High Power, and key down for three minutes. Ouila! "Mobile dogs"!.
Here's my version of a fan vertical. It's a modified Butternut HF2V 40/80M vertical with 30M quarter wave radiator added. The add-on had no noticeable affect on 40M or 80M. The antenna also works on 6M now to my surprise. I'm planning to add a 20M radiator next spring.
the fan dipole project works well. Was cheep to feed with rg-6 , signals are better then the R7 vertical most of the time. .. started with a 160m dipole and add on with 40m and 80m fans , then added more bands , ended with a all bander ... only thing is the wires can twist up ,,,, the arrl antenna handbook has a nice vertical wire antenna multiband project . only thing is the wires can twist up ,,,,
In the past I built a fan vertical with 1/4 wave elements wired in parallel for 160, 80 and 40 meters. They were over "MANY" on ground radial wires and it worked very well.
I started out with an Inverted-V Jetstream Fan Dipole configured for 80, 40, 20, 10 several years ago (2014). When I moved QTH in 2015, I had to leave off the 80m segments due to space limitations and a power line diagonally crossing my back yard. I recently pulled it down and rebuilt it, replacing the Jetstream provided spreaders with 1/2 PVC spacer bars, taking the spread from 3" to 12" between dipole strands. It is now much more forgiving in terms of SWR across each band, giving almost unmeasurable SWR on all but the lower half of 20m where I went slightly short on the radial measurements initially anyway. So far I've worked 68 countries since August on it with 100w or less and am very happy with the results. That said, I would certainly love to be able to add 60, 80 and 160 meters back into the equation at some point. So maybe a "real" vertical version of something --other than a tower- is in order. 73, David N5ZDT
Why not a discone? Like in this thread: https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/discone-antenna-for-hf.349996/
Onno is very much doing us a disservice, IMO, but not following through on his comments about DRILLING INTO HIS HAND. SAFETY FIRST is --THE-- "FOUNDATION OF AMATEUR RADIO" . To wit (from Onno): "Discussion with fellow amateurs encouraged my tomfoolery... my unhealthy relationship with drills. You might remember that I managed to drill a hole in my hand a while back ..." Drill are TOOLS, there is no such thing as an 'unhealthy relationship' with a tool. Understand how it works;its limitations; and intended use. Accidents HAPPEN, but careless INJURIES ARE PREVENTABLE. This sure sounded like a careless injury. Here is a very useful one-pager on safety and hand drills: https://ehs.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/powered-hand-drill.pdf The bottom line is that MANY HAND DRILL INJURIES happen because folks don't often know, or take the time to know, that you have to make a small hole first, with a far smaller drill bit, to ACT AS A GUIDE hole for using the larger drill bit. This is ESPECIALLY TRUE when drilling into surfaces which are CURVED, such as pipes and aluminum tubes. Remember: DRILL BITS BREAK--- use slow speeds if possible and NEVER apply excessive pressure. Now the same issue with hand drills applies to use of SCREWDRIVERS: drill a small hole first! Injuries are more common with screwdrivers, because folks apply too much pressure when driving the screw into the hole, and the screwdrivers slips. One useful trick is to apply wax to the screw threads before you start. If you are using a DRILL PRESS, well, you may like this video: Hope this helps: posing 'drilling into your hand' as a passing pop on any discussion of 'foundations of amateur radio' needs to be addressed. 73 Chip W1YW
Well, we both have reached the age of knowing that: LIFE IS PARALLEL; NOT SERIAL. With so many great 'how to' videos on Youtube, you no longer need apprenticeship level experience in a machine shop to get competent--and safe. In fairness to Ono, if you don't want to get your hands dirty--as Ono is encouraging--then you shouldn't be in ham radio IMO. OTOH, getting 'your hands dirty' is not equivalent to putting holes in them....