Category Antennas

This category lists all posts related to homebrewing my own antennas.

Short DL6WU yagi for 23cm

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In the previous Winter I built a HB9CV-in-a-box for 23cm for my uplink to the local ATV repeater PI6ATV. Although this antenna works nicely, its gain just isn’t enough when their 23cm preamp is broken (which, unfortunately, is the case…

70cm bicycle antenna

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During the summer season I sometimes travel to work by bike. It’s a 21 km trip through the countryside, passing cornfields, orchards, deer and spoonbills. The road includes dikes and bridges, and even a ferry to cross one of the…

A very small active antenna

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Small active antennas like the “mini-whip” (by PA0RDT) are very popular at the moment. They provide good reception of signals from HF all the way down to the VLF band. Here in the Netherlands Van Dijken Elektronica sells a nice…

HB9CV-in-a-box antenna for 23cm

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The HB9CV has been a popular antenna for decades, especially on the 2m band where it is commonly used for direction finding (foxhunt). Others create arrays of HB9CV antennas for DXing. Since I needed a simple antenna for 23cm (to…

J-pole antennas for HF bands

Introduction I’ve been using J-pole antennas on the 2m band from the first day I got licensed. They perform very well, are easy to construct and are cheap. Since Adrian PA0RDA and I have been experimenting with vertical antennas for…

Squalo antenna for 6m

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Introduction Adri PA0RDA, a friend of me, is trying to do some DX on 6m for a while now. His antenna position is very poor: he lives in the bottom flat of a 5-floor building. He has a balcony on…

Arrow antenna

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Introduction The arrow antenna is a popular antenna for using FM transponders on satellites. These satellites have a uplink on the 2m band, and a downlink on 70cm. You can operate those satellites with a simple dualband handheld radio.

HEDZ antenna for 80 and 160m

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Introduction The zeppelin antenna (or simply “zepp”) is a popular end-fed wire antenna for shortwave bands and has lots of simularities with the J-pole antenna. It consists of a long wire (half wave length), connected to one of the wires…

40m Vertical

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Introduction During the PACC contest in 2009 we missed a good performing antenna for 40m. So during the preparation for this contest in 2010 I built a dedicated vertical for 40m.

DK7ZB yagi for 144MHz

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Introduction After the somewhat disapointing results of the DJ9BV antenna, I decided to try another model. This time I selected a 9 element DK7ZB for my test. I already bought some square alu bars, each 250cm tall. Since the 9…

DJ9BV yagi for 144MHz

Introduction I just started building a new yagi antenna for 144MHz. I used to work with short yagi’s, based on DL6WU, with 6 elements. These antenna’s were about 2m long. I stacked them, tested them both vertically and vertically polarized/stacked,…

6-Element yagi for 144 MHz

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Introduction I designed this antenna in 1995. I wanted a horizontal antenna which has nice characteristics for contest usage. The side lobs are minimized, the beam width is quite large while it has a reasonable gain and front/rear ratio.

HF 1:4 balun

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Introduction Some years ago a friend offered me an HF radio: an Icom IC-730. I decided to buy it, since I didn’t have a HF rig yet. I gave it a nice place on my shelf, connected some meters of…