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| Ground mount for the SkyWhip antenna (Photo belongs to Durham Radio) |
Interesting piece of kit, it's a 16' 8" whip that can be used as a vertical, or two of them can make a portable dipole. You can adjust them for 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, and 6 metres, and of course if you adjust it properly you won't need a tuner.
The best thing about it for me is that with the adapter I bought with it, it will fit my Buddipole set as well. This will give me even better options for island and lighthouse activations now as I will have the ability to put up multiple antennas, both vertical and dipoles.
I'm off to read Ground Systems for HF Verticals by Rudy Severns, N6LF, to get the best idea of what the best radial system will be for it.
Once I've had it on the air I'll post a full report on it.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI just received mine today. Ordered a pair so I can use them as verticals or dipole. Did you try yours? 73 de ve2ymv
Hi Yves,
ReplyDeleteI did use the whip for the first time a couple of weeks ago. It works well on all bands from 6m to 20m, but I don't think it would stand up well in a good breeze.
The good thing about the whip is that it works well with the Buddipole system, so you have quite a few options on how to use it.
Yay! Just put one up on top of a 15 ft pole. Reception sounds ok, but still have to tune it for working on 20 m. Summer's busy and frequent thunderstorms made me hide for cover and stow the Skywhip away. Yes, the thing is very flexible and I'm afraid to see it snap in a strong gust. 73!
ReplyDeleteHi Yves,
DeleteLots of thunderstorms here as well this year which really have curtailed my portable activities. Glad to read the whip is working, I did get to use mine a few weeks ago activating a lighthouse and it worked great. Have fun with it!!
73
Bil VE3CLQl
Good news, I did my first HF QSO on 20 meters with KW0N in Mississipi. That's roughly 2000 km away from my QTH. S report was 5-9. I'm testing an above ground installation. Simply put, my planned configuration looks like a vertical dipole with a physically shorter pole (the one pointing at the ground). The reasons behind that design choice was to avoid using radials, have a lower height profile than a full-size dipole and let transmitted signals clear any ground objects (cars, nearby cats/dogs and fellow humans :-) ).EZNEC simulations look good, except that the antenna exhibits a 90 ohm impedance. Not a big deal, I can insert a 75 ohm coax matching section to reduce the mismatch but only for 20 meters. Happy QSOs!
ReplyDeleteYves,
DeleteWhat are you using for the "shorter pole pointing at the ground"?
73,
Bill
A lenght of thick subwoofer speaker wire. Gravity will help keeping it straight :-).
ReplyDeleteOh, and a load coil inserted in the middle of the short pole. Using EZNEC and an iterative design process, I found out that a reactive impedance of 700 ohm seems adequate to bring the feed point impedance close to 70 ohm. An experimental load coil was created with a 15 cm length of 50 mm dia PVC pipe and 17 turns of 12AWG insulated copper wire. Hot glue was used to secure the coil winding on the pipe as it tended to spring out of shape. Mediocre propagation condition persists on 20 meter and up, and the 40 meter band seems a bit better. My auto tuner easily tunes the Skywhip on 20, but not on 40. Not a surprise, since it is much too short for the latter. I'll publish something on the Web soon about my experiments. One improvement is to replace the fixed value load coil with a tapped coil to work on higher bands. 73
DeleteThe Skywhip does not show up on Durham Radio online catalogue. Curious....
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I'll have to call Lee and see if they still stock it.
ReplyDeleteAny news? I know there are alternative sources, like MFJ, but the Skywhip seemed like a better choice when I was shopping for telescopic antennas. In the meantime, I give TLC to the two I have. I coated mine with a bit of Ox-Guard conductive grease to keep them sliding smoothly, even in Fall/Winter weather conditions.
DeleteHi Yves, No idea why Durham stopped stocking them. I was there last week and didn't get a response to my question about them. To bad because I want a second one !!
DeleteIt was a good deal and the Skywhip drew some attention from the boys when I showed it up during last Field Day. Up, up the tip went, as I pulled its segments out. Do you plan to make a dipole? They droop a lot when fully extended in an horizontal positon so I use only one at a time, vertically, and keep one as a backup.
ReplyDeleteI like to work stations on 20 meters these days, when the band isn't too noisy.
Hope to hear from you on HF some day. 73!
Yves, No, I was not going to make a dipole, I wanted to run 2 separate verticals. Looks like I will have to settle on using Buddipole parts instead :-) 73!
ReplyDeleteArgh! I broke one of my two Sky Whip last Winter. Pulled the end during deployment and the two top segments separated from the rest of the antenna. Two little copper friction inserts flew off, never to be seen again. I will try repairing it with parts taken from similar telescopic antennas I have in my junk box. I`m currently using a sloping dipole cut for 20 meters. I`ll try a Windom cut for 40 meters eventually. I`ll probably bring the still intact whip during my vacation week, along with my FT-897 rig.
ReplyDelete