On 3/17/16 8:29 AM, N1BUG wrote:
While trying to figure out how to move up a notch from my inverted V
antennas on 40 and 30 meters I came up with a crazy idea. I was looking
at building a rotatable dipole for 40 meters, either full size or
possibly shortened. A 70% of full size linear loaded 40 meter dipole is
nearly a full size 30 meter dipole. Various articles claim only about 1
dB reduction in "gain" from a full size dipole on 40.
An "infinitesimally small" dipole has a theoretical gain of 1.5dBi vs
2.14 dBi for a half wave dipole. 1dB reduction seems larger than what
you'd expect.
Could relays be
used at the dipole feed point to short out the linear loading, making a
two band antenna? It seems good in theory but if it were that easy,
wouldn't someone have done it already? I have no idea whether RF voltage
across the relay contacts when operating on 40 meters would be high
enough to make this impractical.
There's no big advantage to linear loading: you might as well use a good
low loss inductor at the feed (the "shorty 40" does this).
I don't think the voltage will be all that extreme. A 30 m dipole, on
40m, has a feed point impedance of 30-300j ohms. You can use one of the
antenna tuner apps to figure out what hte voltage is.
W9CF has a nice simulator in Java
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