"stealth" 28g wire doublet
This is a 66' doublet made
with 28g enameled wire fed with homebrew
ladder line made with the same 28g enameled wire with wooden dowels for
spacers. The dowels are about 3 inches wide with 1/16" holes drilled
near the ends for feeding the wire. The dowels are secured to the wires
with Plasti-Dip, a liquid plastic in a can that dries as soft plastic
when exposed to air. A little messy to work with, but works
well.
The center hanger of the
doublet is
made from a piece of Lexan with holes drilled to feed the wire from the
legs and ladder line. Each wire is pulled through two holes to provide
some strain relief. The holes are also filled with rubber gromets to
further reduce the strain. I was able to hang this up in a tree in my
front yard about 30 feet with the legs angling down in an inverted vee
fashion with the ends around20 feet high. The apex and ends were all
secured with 10lb test fishing line and is barely visible in my front
yard.
The W8FGU portable
operating position
with the ever faithful Buddy keeping gaurd. If you look real close, you
can see the ladder line rising from the back of the K2.
The portable station setup with the K2, Palm Paddles, headphones and
notes (note bug spray underneath - a must).
The ladder line is fed
directly from
the KAT2 internal tuner in the K2. I made a small 4" stub with RG174
connected to a RCA jack with banana sockets mounted on the other end.
It is then plugged into a BNC to RCA adapter connected to the KAT2.
Feeding the antenna this way eliminates using a balun as long as the
the feeline is balanced.
Front view of ladder line connection to the K2.
This is the 6 foot stub of ladder line that is used to help tune this
doublet on all bands except 17m and 12m. If I want to use these bands,
I just remove the stub. The overall length of the ladder line with the
stub is about 36 feet. The max SWR on any band is 1.4:1 without the use
of a balun.
The shack gaurd dog on duty.
