High Sierra

I have a Sidekick that I'm trying to mount as a base antenna.

The manual says to cut 4 Radials. One is at 32', one at 16', one at 11', and one at 8'. Now my question is as follows:

The 32' Radial is for 80meters, the 16' radial is for 40meters, the 11' radial is for 20meters, and the 8' radial is for 10meters. Am I right in this thinking? And can I attach each radial seperate, So I can cut each one to lenth as needed? (to trim and tune) Or will this change the tuning of each band as I ad radials?

 

The lengths you quoted would be for 40, 20, 15, and 10 meters. Add more of them for better performance. I think this antenna is a screwdriver type so you are going to tune it for each band anyway.

 

If the antenna uses elevated radials, the 32 foot one is for 40m. You would need a 64 foot radial for 75m.

 

...and as CT said, more is better. Think of one resonant radial per band as the bare minimum to make it work. Add as many as you can find tie-off points for. Sloping, drooping and draping those radials is OK too. Ground radials work far better when strung in compromised configurations than when not there at all.

 

Ihave the same antenna and I hooked it as a base antenna and did like the manual said and ran 8 radials 10 foot long and I tune 75-6 meter with no problems

 

32= 234/7.25mhz
16= 234/14.3mhz
11= 234/21.2mhz
08= 234/28.5mhz

Then when you add those 4 radials together

= 67 foot

67= 234/3.5mhz

That could be how you get 75 meter also with those 4 radials.

I think this is right and I have tried it before and it worked just fine.
I may be wrong but I thought the 4 above lengths are specific to cover 75-10 meter and standard for most verticals?

 

Ok thats what I wasen't sure of. If you were supose to ad them all together to get the 64' for 75Meters. Well I can't get it to tune 75Meters with 4 radials. So next I'm going to try 8 10' radials and see if that works.

Thanks all for you help!

 

Adding radials like that ...?? It takes one wire of that length for 75M. With any screwdriver, 2 radials are a bare minimum.

As DXP stated, the 64 or 65 foot radial is for 75M.

Think of it as the bottom portion of a vertical for that band, you need the rest of the quarter wave which is the 60+ footer.

Bill, W0LPQ

 

Wouldn't that be great if you could just add radial lengths? You could have several hundred 12 inch radials for a great 80M vertical on less than a 3x3 foot footprint!

 

PBR...you need the 64 foot radial for 75M ... period. At least 2 of them.

Pat, KBN that would be neat ... postage stamp lot and get on 160 with 18 inch radials...!

Nope, not gonna happen.

Bill, W0LPQ

 

It may be possible to tune a screwdriver antenna to resonance on 75m using a 32 foot radial but it would be an off-center-fed configuration. The screwdriver would need to be able to be adjusted from the normal 90 degrees to 135 degrees of antenna. I doubt that a screwdriver coil has that kind of range but I might be wrong.