Hello!

I'm not sure how to articulate my question .. but here goes ..

I am considering mounting a 20m Moxon antenna on
my garage in my back yard.  

My house is about 80 feet from the garage.
I would need to run coax from the Moxon to my
house where my "shack" is.

I'd assume that my primary challenge would to be minimize
cable losses.

Does this seem at all workable?  Would I just seek the
lowest loss 50 ohm cable such as RG8X or similar?

Thank you for any and all comments :-)

I've got a dumm question ..

When one specifies the length of an end-feed L-antenna,
are they referring to only the horizontal part, or
is the vertical "lead in" part of the measurement as well?

Thanks! & 73

Thanks for the information.

It didn't occur to me to search for "grounding" so that
information is helpful to me :-)

I've got an ARRL antenna book and it devotes about
2 paragraphs to the topic, so it's not much to go on.

Thanks again,

--KC9KEP

Hello all!

I've got plans to build the Moxon antenna as featured
in QST magazine (for 20 meters).

I've purchased a 10-foot tripod, 10-foot mast and rotator.
The ridge of my roof is about 21 feet high, so I hope to achieve
a height of 37 feet.
I plan to ground the tripod via aluminum wire
and ground rod.

Here’s the problem: my wife is concerned about lightning.
Truth be known, the risk bothers me too.

Would I be better off with a tower?
Where I grew up, everyone in my parents neighborhood
had TV antennas on their roofs and I don't recall any
one's house getting struck by lightning.

There are a few cotton-wood trees in my yard that
would make taller targets than my tripod & Moxon.

How about a lighting rod at the top of the tripod?
I've never seen anyone do that?

Thank you!

--Tom Nickel
KC9KEP

Hello!

I'd like to put up a 10-foot tripod and 10-foot
mast onto my rooftop for a 20-meter Moxon.

My roof ridge is about 21 feet high, so I hope to
achieve about 35 feet of height.

I'd placing on the rear ridge of my roof.

Can anyone tell me how I can determine what restrictions
exist for antenna installations in my locale?

I don't want to start to blindly phone around and
generate undesirable attention if I don't need to :-)

Thanks!

Thank you everyone for all the information!

It's all good learning for me!

In the near future, I'd like to build a Moxon antenna
with rotator, so I'll be interested to confirm its
performance if possible.

But, what had piqued my interest was an old QST
article in which they were plotting a graph
of their wire antenna.  They just turned on their
transmitter and plotted signal strength over a
large radius.  (and, located some unexpected lobes.)

And, that's what I have right now, an end-feed wire.

Sorry, I do not have the dimensions handy.  I'd guess
that it's up about 25 feet and is around 80 feet
long ..

But, as much as anything, I'm curious how a "field plot"
is accomplished :-)

Thanks again all!

73

Hello,

Can someone point me to a source of reference materials or offer suggestions on how I can generate an antenna polar plot?  (Maybe that’s not even the correct name for such a plot?)

I would assume that it would take two people.  One with a field strength meter and another to key a transmitter attached to the antenna to be characterized.

I’d further assume that one would want to record multiple samples of the signal strength at equal distances in a circle around the antenna.  The person who is taking the “field readings” could contact the operator (via cell phone or whatever) and request that the transmitter be keyed in order to take a reading.

I suppose that the various signal strength readings could then be plotted on a polar graph.

I’d also assume that one would want to apply as little transmitter power as would be required as to not clog up the air waves unnecessarily.

For that mater, would one need to identify them self for each transmission?  I would think so because it’s the regulation, no?

Thanks for any information!

KC9KEP

Hi,

Can someone help me understand the differences between a “long-wire” and “inverted-L” antenna?

I can find information about each but I’m not sure that I understand what the distinction is.  To make matters worse, I suspect that some hams may use the two terms recklessly.

I've built an antenna that is basically a wire that runs from the second story of my house, runs along the driveway and connects to a mast that is supported by a 5’ tripod & 10’ mast on top a shed in my back yard.

The “lead-in” runs down from the end of the antenna wire that's attached to my house and into my “shack”.

I’m not sure what kind of antenna I’ve made!

Thanks again,

--KC9KEP

Thanks all!

I would probably be building a Moxon for 20 meters.

An 80 meter version would be quite large (about 102 feet!)

Now, can anyone tell me if it would be feasable
to use a 20 meter Moxon antenna for 10 meters as well?

Thanks again!

73

KC9KEP

One more Moxon antenna question ..

It appears that these antennas are relatively
light.

Do you suppose that one could use a conventional
television type tripod, mast and rotator with the antenna?

thx!

73

KC9KEP

Has anyone built the Moxon antenna that was recently
featured in ARRL/QST magazine?

It's rather rectangluar with about a 6' radius swing
for 10m if I recall.

It looks interesting, but I was wondering if anyone
had built such an antenna.

73

KC9KEP

FWIW .. I received my ticket a few years back and was
eager to take the code exam while it still existed.

It was something I had wanted to do while I was still
in grade school, but got sidetracked for a few decades.

Anyway, the whole reason that I got my ticket was to
learn & use CW .. I love it :-)

My first home brew QSO got me from Wisconsin to Vermont
with one horizontal sweep tube!  Amazing!

I've got a en-V Cell Phone, wide band internet,
wireless routers .. nothing is as magic as CW!

73

KC9KEP

I use CorelDraw graphics suite 12.

73

Thank you all for the infomation!

It makes much more sense to me now.

I'll need to research the series more :-)

Regardless, I've always enjoyed Gil's style.

Kind of a cross between Krazy Kat, Tin Tin,
and a much cleaned up Robert Crumb :-)

73

Anyone who has ever read the 40's & 50's ARRL
handbooks has likely enjoyed Philip "Gil"
Gildersleeve's cartoons.

Can someone explain to me the recurring cartoon about
Gil's charater "Jeeves"?

So, what is Jeeves?  Some rich Ham's butler?

Does Gil ever show who is talking to Jeeves off-panel?

Is Jeeves always the butt-end of the jokes?

Thanks for any insights :-)