Antenna erected and working

The antenna is an end fed dipole (essentially a long wire of 20m with a 9:1 UNUN). I bought this from Martin Lynch Ltd in the UK and it is sold as their Mydel 80-6m end fed dipole (see here).
I also decided to invest in some decent coaxial cable and connectors so bought 25m of Messi and Paoloni Flex 7 cable and their matching Messi and Paoloni PL259 connectors. These are unlike any coax connector I have ever seen before.

Flex7 PL259 plug

Flex7 PL259 innards

The connector part that looks like a top hat slides onto the copper foil covered inner conductor and slides in between the cable sleeve and copper outer sheath. The black piece is actually rubber and the clamping gland compresses this and is supposed to make a hermetic seal. I used some self amalgamating tape over the entire assembly.


My wife and I spent a couple of hours erecting the wire antenna in the garden today. I fixed a nylon guy rope that runs from an existing eyebolt conveniently drilled into the house brickwork. This was installed about 15 years ago by a BT engineer.
I used a stainless steel thimble to clip around the eye and then threaded the 6mm nylon rope through the thimble. The rope was secured using 4 cable ties.

Then I spent a few minutes using cable ties to secure the coaxial cable to the nylon rope. I spaced the cable ties about every 12". When I got to the end of the cable where the coax connector is I left about 18" of slack. Then the UNUN was fixed to the nylon guy rope. Again I had made extensive use of rope thimbles to ensure that I minimised rope to metal contact.
Then I went up a ladder into the tree and fixed a rope to a lower limb. This is around 20 feet from the ground and is plenty high enough for me. Onto the rope I fixed a stainless steel pulley block assembly.

Stainless steel pulley block

I threaded the loose end of the nylon rope through this and pulled it tight. The rope and coax assembly complete with UNUN, earth cable and antenna wire were pulled into the air. I noted the position of the UNUN relative to the pulley (about 3 feet) and lowered the antenna back to the ground. I could then clip the earth grounding cable from the UNUN about 2'-6" along the free end of the rope. Then my wife hoisted it up into the air.

The next job was to take the ladder to another tree about 25m away and erect another rope/pulley assembly into a lower limb. This time I connected another 6mm nylon rope to the insulator fixed to the end of the antenna cable. Now the rope was threaded though the pulley and the antenna was hoisted into the air. After some surgery work with a saw on a laburnum tree that had upper branches interfering with the antenna we were able to hoist the aerial fully into the air.

The rope from the house to first tree was pulled into a vee shape by the tension in the antenna cable but it looks ok.

UNUN clearly visible along with the pulleys

The antenna - 20m long to a beech tree in the distance

As I was up the ladder putting screw eyes into the tree trunk to guide the earth/ground wire an old man passed. He asked if I was a radio ham. I said I was. He said he used to be in the 1950's and 60s but doesn't do it anymore. 

"Back in 1963" he started "I was speaking to a friend in the USA who said that John F Kennedy has just been shot" 

"I ran down stairs to tell my dad and he said 'no he's not we would have heard it on the news'" 

"Two minutes later the TV was interrupted to say that JFK had actually been shot" 

"That's what amateur radio does"

He then carried on walking with his dog. Maybe I inspired him to get back on the bands again - who knows?

I tested the antenna out and was able to get it to resonate on all bands from 40m to 6m. However I couldn't get it to resonate at all on 80m but was able to resonate on 160m. Oh well I suppose 10 out of 11 amateur bands can't be bad! I was also able to get it to resonate on the 5MHz which I have a NOV to work on.

Using just 5 watts from my FT-450D on 20m I was able to work Massimo IK2RZG using SSTV (also a first for me) with a full 599 report. I am very pleased. There is very little noise now on any band. I was experiencing a lot before as I'm sure the old long wire was picking up interference from the computers in the shack. As the new antenna is out in the garden and is about 15m away with various brick walls in the way there is no problem from shack based noise.