Future Projects - IK1MNJ' s Site

Future Projects ?

Talking about future project I mast say that everyone of us fell in love with this hobby should want to own the best and big antennas with high performances, unfortunately not many Hams could not do that due to several reasons, one very common is the local antenna restrictions in urban and suburban area, in this case it will be already a success if they could install a simple multiband vertical, in this regard I'm very lucky, I'm living here in a house of my property with lot of room in the backyard so i can install  ( almost ) everything I wish, the first project ( after lot of disappointmen in the first try in 1999 ) is to try again to match my tower in 160m. using four elevated radials and using new kind of feed, the idea comes from N4KG called reverse feed system ( see book Low Band DXing by ON4UN ) , but first for Winter 2006/2007 i wish to add some ( four ) elevated radials  to my actual 160m. Inverted L, for second future project is to built a real 80m. four square verticals array, i will inform you later as the job proceed, stay tuned guys !

New 160m. Vertical and 80m. Four Square Vertical Dipoles Arrangement

Next Year 2010, I wish to try a new 160m. vertical Tower and a new 80m. Four Square Vertival Dipole Arrangement, as support I will use my unused old 24m. triangular Tower 14 inches on a side, lengthen to a about 100 feet, This will be feed as 160m antenna, I do not know if I use it as isolated Antenna or as a shunt feed tower yet, however it will also serve as support for a new arrangement of the Four Square Vertical Dipoles Array, this time will be properly spaced and with a height sufficient to allow proper truss layout and no longer fall back on the dipoles themselves.
Whole installation will be put at a distance away as possible from the current Tower, a minimum of 140 feet is desirable, more is better, well closing now, stay tuned.

Added comments September 2010

1) The work progresses, but before coming to the realization of vertical 160 m. and resettlement of the four dipoles in phase to 80m. I have put in place to change my PKW 3 elements Yagi for 40m. this was a loaded antenna, which also worked well but only in the CW portion, covering 7000 to 7060, I got up, now with the ability to use 7000 to 7200 I was born the idea of removing the coils and the elements to extend the physical measure, first of all because my tower is close to home I could not extend them fully, however, reaching the 14-meter maximum possible compensating for the missing measure, leaving the sides hang a wire connected to the ends of the elements, thus forming a kind of upside-down U, Thanks to Donato IK2EGL through its website, where I gained various information about it, the spacing of the elements so far has remained as before, now the antenna is terminated with regard to the mechanical work, are about to do the resonance of the radiator and thus vary the basic measures and the reflector radiator in proportion, the tools I use are an MFJ 259B, a Autek VA1 Vector Antenna Analyst, and an MFJ 203 Dip Meter.

2) At the same time I'm working to build a dipole for 80m. , to be placed on top of the mast at about 30 meters, the project includes a length of 26 meters, two piece 4 m. aluminum tubes isolated from the mast, where I will insert two fishing rods of 10 meters (suitable for 9 meters), inserting the wire necessary and how in the 40m antenna, leaving excess hanging wire to move the dipole to resonate at approximately 3780, also the idea to make it suitable for the CW portion, using a box that will contain the two coils are necessary for the resonance at around 3530, wel that' s all for now, stay tuned guys, i will pubblish all the jobs with photos, 73' de Enrico.

Added comments January 2012

Happy New Year to all, some note here about consideratins on my Antenna Projects, recently, after a period of reflection, I'm changing my way of seeing the
improvements on my  antennas park, due to never resolved situation of the high noise on the bands especially in 80 and 160m., which mostly makes me almost
impossible to do DX on these frequencies, already it is very difficult at times to the other bands, but the noise is tremendous in these last two, is always between S8 and 9+10 db, even 59+20 db in certain days, you know that in these conditions is hard to do DX contact !!!
This past summer, having made some tests in my own, on the sources of noise from this three-phase power line to 15000 volts, have reached the following
conclusions: 1) I must solve the problem in all ways, even facing a lawsuit against the energy supply company (ENEL), 2) by now seen the highest noise picked
up on a vertical antenna, about 20 db more then a horizontal one, for now, I abandoned plans to put the a tower wich support four 80m vertical phased dipoles and feed the same tower as an isolated from ground vertical for 160m, rather inclined to make a horizontally polarized Antenna at least on 80m., abandoning for now the realization of a system for 160m. wich  i will decide in the future, here 's idea of making a U 2 or 3 elements Yagi, I already got the 6 Spiderbeam rods necessary in Friedrichshafen last summer , however, there is a problem to solve, adding a 80m. Yagi to my already heavily loaded Tower,  it would be at risk so first solution is to add another tower at an a  distance suitable with a major expense to deal with, or replace my current heavy interlaced system with eight-band high-gain, with a lighter, performing and more modern Antenna System as the 4 elements Ultrabeam Yagi from 6m to 40m. I think that this is an optimal solution,  In this case i will extend the Tower from 85 to 100 Foot at least, so to have the 80m meters to an acceptable hight, that's all, will keep you informed on the progress of the situation, 73 'Henry de IK1MNJ