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I used the Cushcraft A3 et A4s yagis and soon or later, problems are appearing..
Here are the results of my investigations and repairing technic, that can be applied to other models and trades as well.
What is described here applies to a A4s triband antenna, but the reasoning can be made for any multi-band yagi or vertical.
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For my SOTA activities, i recently bought a QRP transceiver QRP SW-3B, which is a three-band QRP CW only for 40/30/20 m.
So, i needed an antenna that would allow to use these 3 bands in SOTA portable activity.
Already having some experience with the EFHW antenna, i decided to build one for 40/30/20m.
The main advantages of this EFHW antenna are :
- easy to build
- multiband
- needs only one support, can be installed in line, inverted V, zigzag.
- fed at its extremity, can be directed connected to the transceriver, without any coaxial cable.
- the radiating part is at the center
All these advantages are welcome for portable operations and make this antenna a perfect candidate for SOTA
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Enter the lowest frequency in MHz for which you want to calculate the harmonics.
The calculator returns the theoretical wavelength (WL) and mechanical lengths for full (ML), half (ML/2), quarter (ML/4) waves.
The shorting factor used is k=0.95.
F1 | H2 | H3 | H4 | H5 | H6 | H7 | H8 | H9 | H10 | |
MHz | ||||||||||
WL (m) | ||||||||||
ML (m) | ||||||||||
ML/2 (m) | ||||||||||
ML/4 (m) |
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Voici un simulateur pour le populaire coupleur d'antenne en T avec capacités série et inductance parallèle. Les trois boutons au bas du dessin permettent d'ajuster les trois composants. Ils peuvent être réglés en déplaçant la souris sur un bouton, en cliquant et en maintenant le bouton gauche de la souris appuyé et en faisant tourner le curseur autour du bouton. Le bouton devrait alors tourner et faire varier la valeur du composant choisi. Les boutons des condensateurs ont une course de 10 tours et la self 30.
No java |
Le ROS est affiché simultanément de manière digitale en haut à gauche du "coupleur" ainsi qu'analogiquement sur le ROS-mètre. La perte provoquée par le coupleur est affichée en pourcentage par rapport à la puissance d'entrée ainsi qu'en dB. En cliquant sur le bouton "Autotune", l'ordinateur calculera la valeur exacte des composants qui adapteraient parfaitement la charge en limitant au minimum la perte dans le coupleur en supposant que les condensateurs variables ont un Q nettement plus élevé que la self.
L'algorithme de calcul Autotune tente de minimiser la valeur de l'inductance à utiliser en commençant par essayer de trouver un accord en affectant une valeur maximum à un des condensateurs variable, puis si cela échoue, il essaye chacun des composants avec sa valeur actuelle. Si aucun accord initial n'est trouvé, il abandonne et affiche "Tune failed" dans le panneau des messages. Si un accord initial est trouvé, il effectue une recherche dichotomique entre la valeur de départ de l'inductance et zéro afin de trouver la valeur minimum de l'inductance pour un accord.
Notez qu'il est simple de programmer un algorithme qui trouve le minimum de perte, alors que nos coupleurs n'ont pas d'indicateur de perte, une règle comme "trouver un accord avec un minimum de self" est bien plus utile. Dans tous les cas, le Q des véritables composants varient pendant qu'ils sont ajustés.
Le bouton Set Up vous permet de changer la valeur maximum des trois composants et leurs Q. Initialement les condensateurs ont une valeur de 250pF, un Q de 2000 et la self une valeur de 30 uH et un Q de 100.
Les trois champs à droite vous permettent de changer la charge et la fréquence en MHz.
Une façon d'utiliser cette applet est de sélectionner une valeur de résistance et réactance de la charge, puis d'ajuster les boutons pour trouver une adaptation, comme vous le feriez avec une vrai coupleur. Notez le pourcentage de pertes dans le coupleur pour votre réglage et cliquez ensuite le bouton "Autotune" et vérifiez si l'ordinateur a trouvé un meilleur réglage.
Veuillez prendre note que si vous cherchez un logiciel pour déterminer les valeurs optimums des composants d'un coupleur en T, vous devriez chercher ailleurs !
Pour utiliser ce logiciel localement sur votre ordinateur, téléchargez le fichier tuner.jar et le fichier que vous visualisez actuellement tuner.html et copiez les dans le répertoire de votre choix, puis visualisez le fichier tuner.html à l'aide de votre navigateur.
Le code source Java de l'applet est distribuée sous licence GNU general public. la source est disponible dans l'archive tunersrc.zip.
La page de l'auteur est disponible ici. Vous y trouverez quantité d'informations intéressantes d'un niveau technique parfois élevé !
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This page has no pretention and is not a complete description of the vertical antenna, it only is intended to help you understand the most important things about this antenna and to how make it work !
The simplest of all antennas is the vertical, also called the Marconi antenna. It has a quarter wave electrical length and has its base connected to earth.
This antenna vibrates with a intensity node (minimum) at his top, so at a voltage antinode (maximum).
Simple in its operation, it is by cons not the easiest to understand and handle.
Picture : The 1/2 wave antenna and it's equivalent mounted on ground. The missing 1/4 wave can be considered as its image in the ground.
- No horizontal radiation
- 5,1 dBi gain
- Maximum radiation at 0°
- Impedance of 36,5 Ohm
- No loss in the grounding system
PERFECT means no loss in the vertical radiating part, no loss in the grounding system (also called counterpoise, by analogy to mechanics)
In these conditions, with a 50 ohm coaxial feedline, you should accept a 1.4 SWR or add a matching system with a quarter wave line ot a LC circuit.
Unfortunately, perfection does not exist...
Consider the same antenna over the best earth that can be found : salt water (i know it's stupid)
The diagram already shows a visible difference :
- Maximum radiating angle : 10°.
- Gain loss : 4,45 dBi
- Impedance 36 Ohm.
This difference is due to a worse soil conductivity.
The same antenna, but this time over a bad soil (city lot). I don't wish that to anybody !
The diagram shows :
- Maximum radiating angle at 28°.
- Important loss : -1,01 dBi
- Impedance 36 Ohm.
We see that the soil nature is very important for this antenna !
The efficiency of a vertical depends not only of the soil nature, but also other factors. Considering losses, the efficiency can be resumed by the formula :
- Losses in the loads (coils, traps, etc...)
- Losses in the ground
In ground losses, we have to consider TWO TYPES of loss :
1) The ground at immediate antenna vicinity in which the current return will be done.
The power applied to the antenna has still not been radiated and the losses are dissipated in the ground and are reducing the radiatiing efficiency of the antenna.
2) The ground all around the antenna over a large number of wave length, typicaly > 2 for a quarter wave vertical.
It is in this part of the ground, called Fresnel zone, that the power radiated by the antenna will be reflected by the soil and will contribute to the reflection efficiency.
We see that for having an efficient vertical antenna, we can act on these 2 factors. If it is almost impossible to influence the second one (you can move to a remote island, water your garden), we can improve the first one in reducing the losses to their minimum.
With a poor ground and in order to have the best current return as possible, we can reduce the losses by placing a certain amount of radials.
These radials can be :
- laid on the ground.
- buried into the soil.
- raised over the groundl.
The first 2 methods are equivalent in terms of performances, except if you are burying the radials too deeply. Depth from a few cm to several tens of cm will not make a big difference.
Brown, Lewis and Epstein in their 1937 studies have shown that in order to obtain a perfect grounding system, 120 radials are needed !
Less radials means worse efficiency, more will not bring an improvement.... A reasonable minimum would be 16 radials of a 1/8 wave length.
Curiously, the number of radials also determines their length. The follwing table gives this relation :
Nb radials |
4
|
12
|
16
|
24
|
48
|
96
|
120
|
Length (Lambda) |
0,1
|
0,15
|
0,125
|
0,25
|
0,35
|
0,45
|
0.50
|
In all cases were 120 radials are not possible, it is better to use surelevated radials.
Computer simulations and real-world tests have shown that 6 radials of 0.25 wavelength uniformely disposed around the vertical give the same result as 120 radials of 0.5 wavelength !! Only one radial is altough enough for a good current return, but the antenna will have a certain directivity and a horizontal component.
2 radials are correcting this.
CAUTION, using surelevated radials will lower the impedance down from 36 Ohm to close to 21 Ohm !!
The radials must be tuned in order to reduce the radiation impedance. Their height over ground should be at least 0.03 wavelength, but this heigth depends of the soil quality. The poorer the ground, the higher the radials.
The best would be to elevate the base of the vertical in order to strain the radials at 90° (horizontaly). The higher the antenna, the better the gain.
When all this is not possible, the radials are placed at 45° from the base until they reach the right heigth and the rest will be strained horizontaly.
Some practical hints :
- I'm tuning the radials by pair (in opposite directions) in connecting them like a dipole and with the help of a noise bridge or a VNA placed at the base of the vertical. The important fact is tuning them to the right frequency, not for lowest SWR. Once tuned, they are reconnected at the antenna base.
- Use good insulators at the end of the radials, they have a maximum of voltage at this position. I've seen insulators of several cm taking fire under wet conditions !
- When using plastic insulated wire for the radials, you have to cut them shorter by 4 - 6% as the theoretical length.
- In case of lack of space, you can shorten the radials by placing coils (with some additional losses...) or bend their extremities.
- A vertical works well on a flat, clear and uniform ground.
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During our multi-multi contest operation, we came against a problem while using low band receiving antennas.
There were 3 low band stations, one on 160m, another on 80m and one on 40m.
The problem was simple : how could we share the Beverage antennas on all of these 3 stations ?
The first solution was to split each antenna in 3 directions with coaxial T's and to use a coax switch on each station, so that each station could select a different antenna. That proved to be not very satisfying, the impedance seen by the receivers and antennas were changing a lot depending on the position of the different switches.
DK4VW, Uli told me that the BCC (Bavarian Contest Club) crew was using a Beverage switching box that proved to be very efficient and i began to build such a box with his precious help.
Informations below given with permission of DK4VW.
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Since almost 30 years, for my portable VHF activities, I used a F9FT 9el yagi. This one was the best available for this purpose, it was leigthweight, relatively cumbersome and performed quite well. Unfortunately, it broke during a contest when falling down from 7m high...
To replace my beloved antenna, I decided to build something and not to buy one. After searching some design on internet, I finally adopted DK7ZB's one. He offers several designs, and iIchosed a 7 element yagi in 28 Ohms technology.
The advantages of DK7Zbs antennas are :
- Computer optimized
- Great reproductibility
- Easily assembled and dismantled. Ideal for portable operations.
- Excellent electrical characteristics, gain, pattern, F/B ratio.
The original version described on DK7ZB's page has a 3.26 m boomlength. So, I asked him if he could calculate it for a 3m boom. Aluminium tubing are sold in 6m length, and with 3m booms i would be able to build 2 antennas. The new calculated antennas have a small gain drop (about 0.35 dB)
Another advantage of this 7el is that with a 6m long alu tubing, you have enough for all elements and build 2 antennas.
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This page is a short description of the four phased verticals system i've build and used. It is primarily intendend to be used on the lower bands 160m, 80m, 40m. All the principles stated here are of course valid for any other bands, but you can achieve the same game with yagi antennas easily. It is mainly built around the Collins hybrid phasing system wound on toroids.
Other feeding methods are possible and certainly better, but this one is rather simple to build and use on the battlefield. (contests, fieldays, expeditions)
Many stations use this system all around the world and it has proven his effectiveness.
Four phased verticals on 80m (click to enlarge)