I just got a 100W HF radio and I am new at this. What is the cheapest antenna I can hook up without burning up my radio or shocking myself?
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1$\begingroup$ That's a pretty broad question, but my go-to is an inverted-V dipole cut to whatever band it is you're interested in. My second choice is a random wire thrown into the top of a tree, but that requires a tuner, which (usually) isn't free. $\endgroup$– DustonSep 18, 2019 at 13:46
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$\begingroup$ It makes quite a difference what band you're going for. With 70cm/2m size isn't much of a problem, but bands 20m and higher you shouldn't forget your space-budget. What bands does your license allow for? $\endgroup$– MastSep 19, 2019 at 9:28
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3 Answers
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The cheapest antenna you can set up is a speaker wire dipole. A spool of speaker wire long enough to split the conductors and make a center fed half wave dipole ought to cost around ten dollars US (or less). You can get useful radiation with supports made from cheap stud lumber from the home improvement store (8-10 dollars per support to get 5 meters off ground -- low for an HF dipole, but it will work). Insulators can be made from bungee cord or zip ties (since the poles aren't conductive).
The only thing you have to spend real money on is a suitable length of 50 ohm coaxial cable and an adapter to connect the antenna wires. You most likely don't even need a balun with a center fed dipole.
This close to the ground, you won't get the very low takeoff angle for DX, but you'll get plenty of ground wave contacts -- when 40 and 80 m are behaving a little (gray line or at night) you should be able to cover a few hundred miles, anyway.
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$\begingroup$ This is exactly what I did to get on 40 meters around 1971. Held it up above my house with 3 2x2s probably 16' long (my dad helped me there). Heard lots of stuff, but my crap Hallicrafters SX-100 drifted so badly that by the time I answered a CQ (at my terrible 5WPM) the receiver was nowhere near the right frequency for me to hear the response ... $\endgroup$– davidbakSep 19, 2019 at 0:01
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$\begingroup$ Adapter to connect the coax to the antenna? Cheap? Try wire nuts. $\endgroup$ Sep 21, 2019 at 21:41
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$\begingroup$ @user10489 Coax (239/259 to two wire) adapters are about $2 from Amazon, ship free with Prime. $\endgroup$ Sep 23, 2019 at 10:55
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Hello and welcome to the hobby!
Generally speaking, it depends on your conditions and area available. Assuming it's not a problem (e.g. you live in a suburb area and have a backyard or are willing to travel to the nearest forest) the simplest, cheapest and quite efficient antenna you can build is a dipole / inverted-V. There are a few ways to build one. I believe there is little sense to describe them here because there is a lot of information on this topic online and in the literature as well. I would like only to leave a few hints here:
- A 10-meters long fishing rod is a good and cheap mast for a 7Mhz or 14Mhz dipole. Use three ropes and screwdrivers to make guys.
- A 1:1 balun made of 8 turns of RG58 coax on FT240-31 or FT240-43 ferrite core will improve the performance of the antenna.
- You can build a multiband antenna, so called fan dipole, if you connect multiple arms for each band
- "ARRL Handbook" and "ARRL Antenna Handbook" are great source of information on antennas.
answered Sep 18, 2019 at 13:45
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Wire antenna are usually the easiest for beginners. The standard is a dipole with 1/4 wavelengths on each side connected in the center to your coax. Another easy antenna is a end fed half wave. It requires a bit more equipment as you need a transformer to match the high impedance.
You can buy or make your antennas. Home brew antennas are a popular way to get started in making equipment instead of buying. While there are many web resources with information on making EFHW antenna, here is good presentation that is relatively recent, http://gnarc.org/wp-content/uploads/The-End-Fed-Half-Wave-Antenna.pdf
I made a 40 meter end fed half wave antenna with a 49:1 transformer with 2 type 43 cores. I have made over 2500 contacts using it, primarily digital modes like FT8 and FT4, using mostly 40 meter, a few 30 meter, some 20 meter,a couple of 17 meter and 15 meter.
