Best dipole for 80 40 and 20

[KE7EOZ]

I dont have a very big yard, and I need to work the 80, 40 and 20 meter bands, what antennas should I get, I heard about the G5RV, but I dont know anybody whom has it, also heard about the DELTA kinds, so recomendations will be appreciated

[AI4NS]

Post this on Tower Talk. You will get many more responses. Build a fan dipole, or a ladder line fed dipole. Will operate almost any band with a tuner. Don't spend a lot of money buying a wire antenna. I got a 500ft spool of wire for 25.00, and 5.00 in sprinkler pipe and built a 160-10M dipole.

Mike
AI4NS

[WB2WIK]

There's no best dipole or any kind of antenna.

If you don't want to homebrew your antennas and want to buy one that's commercially preassembled and packaged, there's a lot to choose from.  The G5RV requires a decent antenna tuner to work properly, but some multiband doublets don't -- the ones that don't are generally more complicated, heavier and more expensive, though.

Alpha-Delta makes some parallel dipoles with the 80m element loaded, so you can install a multiband dipole that covers 80m in only about 82' of horizontal space (plus some space for end support ropes), and it's only "down" about a dB or so from a "full sized" 80m dipole -- however, it is a bit narrower bandwidth.  It has "full sized" performance on the other bands, and it's reasonably priced.

To make a "good" dipole doesn't cost only a few dollars, really.  It costs more than that, unless you already have a lot of the materials on hand.  It's wire, and rope, and end insulators, and a strong center insulator, possibly with a balun.  Not unusual for the "accessories" to cost $20-$30 or so, without the wire, for a professional job that will last a while.  Considering that, some of the preassembled antennas aren't expensive at all.

Usually more important than the details of the antenna is the *deployment* of that antenna: That is, how it is installed, and how high and in the clear it can be installed.

WB2WIK/6