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Author Topic: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?  (Read 785 times)

W2EAF

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10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« on: April 01, 2023, 03:58:14 PM »

So my sister, after years of accusing me of being a "radio nerd" and "always reading tube manuals" back in the day finally saw the light and got her Technician ticket. She is setting up a shack in a dedicated room and really wants to get on 10 meters. She and my brother in law have a big piece of property in rural Pennsylvania but have absolutely no trees to string a wire antenna to. So I'm thinking a ground mounted vertical. Any suggestions?
Rob W2EAF
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ONAIR

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2023, 04:33:20 PM »

Just attach a 9 foot wire to a PVC pole and make several 9 foot radials on the ground!  You could also use a 9 foot CB whip.  Trim the radiator for best SWR.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 04:40:53 PM by ONAIR »
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SWMAN

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2023, 04:48:04 PM »

 For 10 meters I use an Antron 99. It is an 11 meter CB antenna but it works perfect for 10 and 15 meters. I have had great luck with this antenna for many years. Antron now makes an I -Max 2000 which is similar. I have not tried it.

Good luck and 73
Jim. W5JJG

PS. The antenna does not cost a whole lot either. About 100$ .If you purchase the radial kit that is about 50$ more.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2023, 04:53:15 PM by SWMAN »
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WB6BYU

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2023, 06:45:32 PM »

Who do they want to talk to?

That makes a big difference.

A ground-mounted vertical can work well for
ionospheric paths over longer distances, but
height is more important for short distances
(like out to 10-20 miles, the way CB was
originally intended).

For longer distances, a 2-4 element Yagi on
a ~30’ tower isn’t bad, but when 10m is open
it doesn’t take a lot of power or antenna gain
to cover long distances.  (And when the band
isn’t open, it might not help anyway.)

What is their budget?  An old CB antenna usually
can be adapted for 10m, or 10’ of Romex wire
will build a ground plane or hang off the eaves
of the house.  A piece of black ABS pipe (lighter
and stiffer than PVC, but probably needs guy
ropes) can serve as a mast.

If money is no object, they can put up a big
tower with a stack of yagis on it.


More ideas?  Here is a whole bunch of 10m designs
from the late W4RNL.

KU4UV

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2023, 07:19:49 PM »

A half wavelength dipole for 10 meters is only going to be about 15 feet long.  If they have an attic, that might work.  I know you said they had no trees on the property, but a couple of poles that had been secured will get you on the air on 10 meters in the form of a simple dipole.  I lived in an apartment and worked the world with 25 Watts from an HTX-100 and 10 meter dipole in the attic of my apartment, about 25 feet off the ground. If nothing else, a CB antenna on a large piece of sheet metal cut down to 28 MHz will get you on 10 meters.  My twin brother is also an amateur operator.  Back in the early 1990's when 10 meters was wide open on a daily basis, we used his Ranger 2950 and a mag-mount Radio Shack CB antenna to get on 10 meters.  The antenna was horizontally, (YES that's right, I said HORIZONTALLY), mounted to the metal closet door in his upstairs bedroom, no more than maybe 20 feet off the ground.  We worked the world with that setup, and never had high SWR or RF problems.  You would be surprised just what you can accomplish with a simplistic setup on 10 meters when the band is open, like it is right now.  Good luck!

73,
Michael KU4UV
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KK9H

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2023, 07:53:51 PM »

The intended use is an important initial decision. If working DX stations using ionospheric propagation is your goal, then a ground mounted vertical will work, but if you can mount the antenna on the roof of your building it will work much better and allow you to also talk to local friends using ground wave better. My radio club has a 5 watt 10M beacon that uses a Cushcraft AR-10 mounted on the roof of a one story commercial building. It is heard 10-15 miles away locally and we have received signal reports from every continent except Antarctica.
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LA9XNA

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2023, 02:33:13 AM »

Look at the Sirio Boomerang antenna.

Another option is to make a vertical dipole.
The simplest is to use a few meter of copper tubing or aluminium tubing and some PVC hydraulic piupe clamps. Another option is a end fed coax dipole
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NA4IT

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2023, 04:47:00 AM »

I had great success on 10M with a dipole made from two 1/4 wave fiberglass CB whips.
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KD6VXI

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2023, 04:57:50 AM »

Sirio Vector 4000.

Yes, it's large, it's unwieldy, it's sometmes hard to get here in the states, and it just flat out rocks.

It's an end fed half wave vertical.  The bottom "basket" makes up a quarter wave stub.

I put one up about a month ago.  It's a good 15 to 20 dB above my ground mounted vertical in DX.  Ground mounted is a dx commander with a lot of radials (over 30, I forgot).

The Antron is a dummy load. 

When you REALLY want to step up, the Shockwave antenna is about the cats meow. It's also in the yagi price range. 

I've also helped a couple CBers replace their radio shack 5/8 ground planes with a Shockwave and saw a 2 to 3 S Unit increase.  Same with the I10K (which makes sense because the shockwave is a blatant rip off (with permissions) of the I10K).

The Sirio Vector 4000 was a little over 150 shipped to the house.  That was from the UK, and it had to go air mail for me (island life, ya know).  I also had a 2 meter / 440 stick antenna I purchased at the same time and radioworld.uk was kind enough to stuff it in the Vector box, saving me shipping on that.

Shame that I can purchase from radioworld.uk and have it shipped here cheaper than I can purchase from DX Engineering, etc.

But, that's my recommendation.  Yes, a ground mounted vertical will work.  So will 100 feet of coax with nothing at the other end.

From someone with both a ground mounted quarter wave and a half wave at 20 feet to the feedpoint, the 20 feet up antenna is an entirely different world.

--Shane
WP2ASS / ex KD6VXI
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K1KIM

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2023, 07:12:34 AM »

I have several antennas that switch to from my shack, but the best I find on 10M is my horizontally polarized doublet (dipole) resonant across the entire band. No tuner needed there.

I have a trapped vertical with 40 ground radials covering 40-10M, but installed the doublet because the local 10-10 Intl net was almost deaf to me on the vertical.

If she plans on getting her General in the near future I would suggest on of the trapped verticals like Hustler 4-BTV. If she is content with the privileges she currently has then just hang a horizontal dipole and talk to the world. I had New Zealand on my wire and 80 watts yesterday.

Now is the time to get on 10M any way you can.
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N5XJT

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2023, 11:46:24 AM »

A simple ground plane CB antenna, e.g., a Radio Shack 19.5 vertical mounted around 20 ft. including the attached radials will work beautifully without ground radals.  Works well for local and long distance contacts.
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US7IGN

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2023, 12:28:56 PM »

Why hasn't anyone proposed a delta loop on a fishing rod yet?
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WB6BYU

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2023, 01:48:00 PM »

Quote from: US7IGN

Why hasn't anyone proposed a delta loop on a fishing rod yet?



It isn't expensive enough to be that good?

Because some people don't think beyond commercial
antennas and their marketing claims?

Full wave loops can be great antennas, and can be
installed in many different configurations.  The shape
can be modified to match various impedances, from
less than 50 ohms to almost 300 ohms.

But while a traditional loop has a little bit of gain over
a dipole in free space, over practical ground the situation
gets complicated quickly.  For a horizontally polarized
loop, a dipole or inverted vee hanging off the same
support may give a bit more gain at low angles, because
the average height of the antenna is greater.  (The
bottom wire of the loop, being at a lower height,
doesn't contribute as much low angle radiation.)

For vertical polarization (which is what I presume your
loop is attempting to achieve by feeding it in a bottom
corner), performance is greatly dependent on the local
ground conditions.  They are great over salt water, and
should work pretty well in much of the Midwest where
soils tend to have high conductivity.  Here in Oregon,
where most of our soils are volcanic with poor
conductivity, vertical polarization at low heights doesn't
work as well.

But there is another factor that has been touched on:
what distance the antenna is intended to cover.
For really local coverage (out to 30 km / 20 miles or so),
height is more important, as the propagation is usually
via a direct wave, as is typical on VHF.  This a low vertical
isn't going to work as well.  In that case, you would want
a taller fishing pole.  But for ionospheric propagation, that
isn't as much of an issue, and the low vertically polarized
loop can work quite well.

WA3SKN

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2023, 02:55:48 PM »

Gotta budget??
A simple vertical dipole will do, or a  60 ft tower and 6 element beam might work also.  There is a cost difference though.  Can it be directional?
A vertical extended double zepp is non directional and has gain... and is not too large.

-Mike.
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AC2RY

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Re: 10 meter vertical reccomendations?
« Reply #14 on: April 02, 2023, 07:18:57 PM »

So my sister, after years of accusing me of being a "radio nerd" and "always reading tube manuals" back in the day finally saw the light and got her Technician ticket. She is setting up a shack in a dedicated room and really wants to get on 10 meters. She and my brother in law have a big piece of property in rural Pennsylvania but have absolutely no trees to string a wire antenna to. So I'm thinking a ground mounted vertical. Any suggestions?
Rob W2EAF

10M band is now opened on a regular basis for DX work. Like yesterday I was able to work Japan, NZ and Australia within 30 minutes. I used multi-band ground mounted vertical with remote tuner. It would make most sense to build multi-band antenna in preparation of taking General class exam.
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