I live in an apartment and I have limited space to have antennas and no nearby trees. The idea I had was to use the "Hamstick Dipole" setup. My questions are. Since the Hamstick antennas I saw were not multiband, is it possible to wire multiple Hamsticks in a dipole configuration to the same mast (I'm a designer for a metal fabricator so I have created a 25' portable mast) wired in parallel with twin lead and balun. to create a sort of multiband antenna (40, 20, 10). Will the appropriate dipole radiate on the appropriate band? (Path of least resistance) Would I need to set it up in a "Fan" configuration ie.. 15 degree -5% length? I would use the quick disconnects to set them up and tune each one individually. my thinking is that way I can take the mast down and separate the antennas store the whole thing and set it up again without having to re-tune every time.
I have found the hamstick dipole to be my best performer in my limited apt. environment. I don't have any room for resonant dipoles larger than 20 meters, and even that 20 meter dipole picks up lots of noise and doesn't pierce through the stucco building very well. Verticals are out due to lack of ground plane & adequate RF ground. Balanced antennas only.
I went to Industrial Metals in tempe and bought a thin wall aluminum mast and slapped a hamstick dipole on top of it. MFJ dipole bracket, home-made balcony bracket, c-clamped it to my balcony and now I can get some real reach with the bands I have installed on the bracket at the moment.
It's very obvious, but I put it up at dusk and take it down at dawn so the apt. managers don't gripe.
The Valor Pro-Am sticks work very well for what they are.
I live in an apartment and I have limited space to have antennas and no nearby trees. The idea I had was to use the "Hamstick Dipole" setup. My questions are. Since the Hamstick antennas I saw were not multiband, is it possible to wire multiple Hamsticks in a dipole configuration to the same mast (I'm a designer for a metal fabricator so I have created a 25' portable mast) wired in parallel with twin lead and balun. to create a sort of multiband antenna (40, 20, 10). Will the appropriate dipole radiate on the appropriate band? (Path of least resistance) Would I need to set it up in a "Fan" configuration ie.. 15 degree -5% length? I would use the quick disconnects to set them up and tune each one individually. my thinking is that way I can take the mast down and separate the antennas store the whole thing and set it up again without having to re-tune every time.
Thanks,
Tom
KJ4HTO
It just my work. I would give it a try. By any chance do you have a MFJ-259B antenna analyzer?.
The last 8 to 10 years I have been operating with small antenna's both mobile and fixed land. I have had good luck mobile with a ICOM-706mkII-g and a hustler short mast and resonators. I tuned each one with the antenna analyzer and worked 80,40,20 meters quit a bit. At present I use the same rig and a ICOM AH-4 autotuner, mounted about 8' above ground. A wire about 30' long and the ground from the tuner is about 10' long. The system tunes all the HF bands. I can usually work anybody I can hear. The antenna wire is like an inverted V, with the V about 10' of the ground and the ends 8' off the ground.
Good Luck, it fun to experiment.
73
Ned
I know a few guys who have tried them with some degree of success.
Keep in mind that at 80 meters, the bandwidth is extremely narrow - so you might end up with a couple or three sets.
I did see a design once for a 4 band hamstick dipole hub - held up to 8 hamsticks in pairs.
As you go higher in frequency, the bandwidth gets more favorable, as does the overall efficiency.
As a temporary, there are worse ways to go.
One of the brands of similar antennas has a feature I like - you can unscrew the entire end cap, with the whip captive in the nut, then reverse the whip and store it in the hollow antenna - makes it easier to store and transport if you want or need to.
BTW, if you buy the quick-disconnect couplers they make for whips, you can change bands really quickly.
YES! I am a big time user of the Hamstick Octopus antenna as designed by N1GY, in the December 2007 issue of QST magazine.
However, since N1GY's article was written back in December, he sent me some more info about that antenna. First, if you make it with a 10, 15, 20 and 75M Hamstick, you have a four ELEMENT anteanna that is actually resonant on 5 bands! That's right, 40M tunes up very well too!
Find that 2997 issue in an old qst and check out the pictures. It works very well and I use that antenna set up all the time.
First, if you make it with a 10, 15, 20 and 75M Hamstick, you have a four ELEMENT anteanna that is actually resonant on 5 bands! That's right, 40M tunes up very well too!
If by "resonant", you mean a low SWR, one dummy load will work on all bands.
The lower frequency hamsticks (80m and 40m) have a lot of inter-winding capacitance which means a relatively low frequency of parallel self-resonance. They are virtually a dummy load at their parallel self-resonant frequency. (It is possible that the 75m hamstick is self-resonant on 40m and is dissipating most of the signal as heat.) Even on 80m, a hamstick gets too hot to touch around the top of the coil and is 12 dB down from a well-designed bugcatcher or screwdriver, i.e. less than 1% efficient.
I don't remember what the self-resonant frequency for a 40m hamstick is but it should not be placed in a parallel circuit near that frequency or (IMO) above. I'll try to measure that self-resonant frequency of my 40m hamstick today but I'll bet it is far below 28 MHz. I'll also try to find the self-resonant frequency of my 17m hamstick.
I personally would not consider a hamstick fan dipole below 14 MHz. Life is too short to tolerate the frustration of an 80m hamstick dipole.
__________________
73, Cecil, OOTC, IEEE, http://www.w5dxp.com
"Government 'help' to business is just as disastrous as government persecution..." Ayn Rand
Hamstick Dipole
Linear Mode
