Spent some time today doing some fine tuning on my 75m dipole. I really want to have my SWR lowest on 3.97 for W6CCN. It's funny how a few inches on a antenna that is over 120ft long makes such a difference. But that's how it works! This dipole runs from a very short mast on the roof to a cedar tree in the backyard. Although it's up there a little bit, I wish it was higher.
Here is a list of my supplies.
- 6ft aluminum tubing & hardware to attach to roof.
- Approximately 160ft Harborfreight rope
- 1/4in pulley
- 2 nylon insulators
- 1:1 balun
- 130 ft. of solid coated #12 wire
- 50ft run of good coax
- fishing pole & lead weight.
Took me a couple times to get the hang of tossing a lead weight into a tree and getting it over the perfect branch. I have been doing it a lot lately so getting better, guess it will help with my fishing skills too. I used a online dipole calculator to help me figure my length. Using coated solid wire made it easy to leave a little extra length and adjust with ease to said frequency. First I tossed the line over a branch about 40ft up. Cut the weight off the end and tied the fishing line to the rope. I then reeled in the line over top of the branches. The rope ran from the ground to the top of the tree and back down, approximately 80 ft of rope. I tied the two ends together and attached a pulley. The pulley had another length of rope ran through it and over to my wire antenna lying on the ground. I pulled the first rope with the attached pulley to the top of the tree while feeding enough rope through the pulley that the wire antenna stayed on the ground. After getting the pulley as high up as possible I tied off to the tree than began to pull the other rope raising the antenna in the air then tying it off too. Very simple to drop the dipole to tune or maintain. Since I first put this antenna up I have made a few changes adjusting height and length. I really enjoyed this project and am considering doing a fan dipole next and possibly installing a slightly taller mast on the roof. . . 73 . . .
-Bryan
-Bryan