Antennas
Verticals and Radials
By OneShack Staff
A vertical is only as good as what lies under it. Here is why radials matter, how many you need, and when a few elevated ones will do.
Antennas
9 articles on this topic.
Antennas
Receive-Only Antennas
By OneShack Staff
On 160 and 80 meters, hearing is the hard part. Beverages, loops, active whips and noise cancellers improve signal-to-noise, not gain.
Antennas
Yagis and Hex Beams
By OneShack Staff
How a Yagi beam works, what dBi and dBd really mean, why hex beams are so popular, and how to put a beam up safely.
Antennas
End-Fed Half-Wave Antennas
By OneShack Staff
Why a half-wave wire fed at its end needs a 49:1 or 64:1 transformer, how one wire covers several bands, and how to tame common-mode current.
Antennas · Equipment
Grounding and Lightning Protection
By OneShack Staff
Three kinds of ground, one bonded system: how to protect your station, your gear and your home from faults, surges and lightning.
Antennas
Attic HF Antennas
By Bill Rinker, W6OAV
Covenants pushed Bill's HF antennas into the attic in 1986, and he has worked the world from there since. What he learned: stop trying to resonate anything, put up the biggest wire that fits, feed it with ladder line, and let the tuner do the work.
Antennas
Question of the Month: How Do Long Dual Band Verticals Develop Gain?
By Bill Rinker, W6OAV
Lengthening a vertical past 5/8 wavelength should send the signal skyward — yet commercial dual band antennas are longer than that and still claim gain at the horizon. Here is how they do it, and how to read their gain figures.
Antennas · Operating
Testing Portable, Stealthy HF Antennas
By Bill Rinker, W6OAV
A magnetic loop and a pair of Hamstick whips, each set up in a covenant-controlled yard and compared against a full size reference vertical over a week of real contacts.
Antennas · Operating
NVIS: Working the Next 300 Miles
By OneShack Staff
The stations closest to you are often the hardest to hear. Near-vertical incidence skywave is how you cover your own state and the ones next door, and it wants a low antenna, not a high one.
Antennas · Equipment
Ferrites and Common-Mode Chokes: Stopping RF Where It Starts
By OneShack Staff
RF in the microphone, a meter that reads differently when you touch the radio, noise that follows you from band to band — most of it is one fault, and a handful of ferrite cores fixes it.