Amateur Radio made in Italy
Mobile Antennas This is an area of hot competition among antenna manufactures. I am not going to cover how to mount your mobile antenna (Radio Shack sells everything you need to mount antennas), but the basic mobile antenna designs that most mobile antennas manufactures are using today. If you have just started reading my page…
4 Element Yagi Building This article contains discussion of all the different antenna principles previously described elsewhere on this website. A thorough reading and understanding of the other sections are necessary to comprehend all the terms used on this page. It is not necessary to understand all the terms and theories described to build…
Building a 4 Element Cubical Quad There are many reasons you should considering building your own antenna. First you can taylor it to the needs of your communication (local or DX and optimize it for the frequency you talk on) and to the needs of your environment (make it strong if you live in a…
Earth Ground Most of us overlook the importance of hooking good earth grounds to our antennas and our radios. Some think if lightning hits, its going to do what it wants to do. Probably right! Lightning protection is not why I am stressing the earth ground. Good earth grounds serve two purposes. One they protect…
Angle of Radiation Most of us think that our antenna’s “shoot” the signal straight off the end (if its a beam), at right angles from the antenna. I have even seen some operators (mainly ones who live in valleys) bend their mast so that their antenna does not sit with the boom parallel to the ground…
Co-Phasing Co-phasing or “stacking” has long been a way to get high gain from antennas. Co-phasing involves placing two (or more!) identical antennas either side-by-side or one over top another (“stacking”) at a certain distance apart (usually a 1/2 Wavelength or more) and feeding the antennas in-phase. The result is 3 db more than just…
Circular Polarization Circular Polarization is a relatively untalked about subject on 11 Meters, perhaps this is the first time you have ever heard of such a thing. Most antennas are oriented to produce linear polarization – either horizontal or vertical polarization. Sometimes, a creative CBer will turn their beam at a 45 degree angle, half-way…
Omnidirectional Antennas “Omnidirectional” is generic term for an antenna that radiates equally well in all directions. There are several antennas that are considered omnidirectional. 1/2 Wavelength Vertical Most folks lump all vertical omnidirectional antennas into the same category and call them “Ground Planes”. A ground plane antenna is actually an antenna similar to the vertical…
Coax Cables Most CB and HAM radio operators use coaxial (coax) cable to feed their antenna. Another name for the cable you use to hook your radio to your antenna is “feed line”. Feed line is a generic term for all types of cable including coax. Coax has been around for a long time and…
Antenna Basics Radio Waves Radio energy waves are waves of energy that are similar to light waves. In fact signals (radio waves) travel through the air at the speed of light. To understand how an antenna works you must first have a basic idea of the makeup of a radio wave. A radio wave can…