| Got wire? Then measure it out, clip it off, strip the ends and fasten them onto the Amazing, garage-built, bench-tested, technology-free, electrically-challenged, field "proven", dirt cheap, mostly plastic, ugly, simple, nifty, patented, WA4DQS "universal dipole adapter"! |
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No "call out bag" should be without! No respectable ham should admit to having one! No late night monologue should praise it! But if ever you get reeeeeeally bored, and your cat won't sit in your lap, and your wife is at a bridge party, the local repeater is down, and your 40 meter ragchews are little more than excuses to talk about the weather... then crack open a beer (preferably a nice, quality dark lager -- none of this Budweiser crap), turn on Dish TV and veg-out on the couch! (you thought I was going to suggest making one of these little devices? Now that would be boring!) |
| While house-sitting for six weeks last year, boredom and
frustration got the best of me (seems to be the theme of my life lately).
I had brought my radio, but forgot to bring my 40 meter dipole. I was too
cheap and bored to run to HRO and pluck one off the shelf. Besides, I needed
a fix -- a tinker fix. This was the result. It attaches to about
anything, takes most wire sizes, and allows attachment of rigid poles to
make rotatable dipoles. It ain't for permanent installations, but
is sure comes in handy in a pinch. I designed this one to work atop my painters
pole in an inverted V configuration. The two ferrite beads were all I had
on hand. I think a few more might improve it some.
During one portable 40 meter QSO using this adapter, I was able to manually tune my inverted V so well, that the SWR meter on my 756 Pro 2 didn't move during transmissions (and, no, I didn't have the rig's tuner activated). Dunno if I was really getting 50 ohm matching, but a full quieting "QRP" (15watts) QSO with a buddy 300 miles away was easily achieved. So it certainly wasn't murdering my signal. Ahhhh... let the real techies criticize it's electrical properties and problems (the balun issue is always a fun topic...). In the meantime, I'll just keep it handy for the next time I want to play with wire. (my favorite: I installed two radio shack stainless steel CB whips trimmed to the 6 meter band, and ran the 40 meter inverted V below. Niether antenna required the use of my tuner!) |