hello guys Calum here from DX Commander
so many of you know that I currently do
three Antennas - a LITE based on a
7 meter pole and two different 10 meter
poles the Expedition and what we call
the Classic now I'm not gonna go into
too much detail on these
today because I need to focus on a new
80 meter pole and I've got coming into
stock in the next couple of weeks the 18
meter pole is a very heavy duty pole and
if you're not familiar with the size
this is what it looks like to scale
genuinely man-sized and in this drawing
I've created three guy points and the
guy points serve as two purposes
obviously to guide a mask but they also
are kind of section points to connect
the top and guide each element up the
mast
in this spreadsheet I've detailed a poll
lying on the ground and I measured each
section most pull out to around 1.45
meters long which is around 5 feet I
guess and that leaves about 25
centimeters of powell nested inside each
other that's just under a foot the red
text that's where we're gonna put out
the high points and at the bottom of the
10th section will put a small triangular
spreader in fact it's the spreader from
the expedition kit that goes here and
this is gonna guide our 80 meter element
and we can attach our 60 meters and
maybe a 5/8 420 as well
I've yet to decide so it's a big system
and substantially much larger than the
10 meter classic pole that we know and
love today's problem is working out how
we attach the three millimeter thick
stainless steel ground plates and driven
blades to the base the 80 meter pole the
ground plate that's laser-cut is tapped
with six millimeter threads now these
are very close to quarter-inch threads
but it is a metric ton it's 15 holes
here and if we say we add four ground
radials to each of these we're into 60
or so radials and you could easily
double that up if you really wanted 120
I bend up the tab here for the so2 3:9
installation the radiating element is
the same material it's got a strange
hole pattern but that allows for not
only the so2 3:9 flying lead to connect
to the driven element but it also allows
for six elements four elements or just
three elements equally spaced for
instance here's the hole spacing for
four elements and you see it
then we've got the cut nylon plates
these are made from ten millimeter thick
UHMWPE that's just an acronym for ultra
high molecular weight polyethylene it's
fantastic for RF beautifully cuts and
very very strong its cuts with a water
jet machine and all these plates have
additional holes for going but will
allow you to parallel up your three four
or six elements so fitting the ground
and driven plates was a small challenge
to stop them touching each other I've
gone with a rubber coupler here instead
of another two hose clamps and these
couplers is a sort of thing that's used
for plumbing and drainage and so on
and it will separate nicely the two
stainless plates that we've had to look
at and whilst I review what's on the
table here I brought some extremely
heavy shock cord this is used at the
base of the top going level and then I'm
using rubber fuel hose to protect the
pole from the stainless hole clamps
these fit above the driven plate and
below the ground plate
now assembling this assembly if you like
I was very satisfying in close
tolerances mean there's very little
lateral movement
I just need one more hose clamp here
Artie now works for you well very well
indeed so next time we'll measure out
and cut 30 10 meter ground raviel's I'm
probably going to go with maybe more but
we'll also mathematically calculate the
element lengths and cantor label those
and I'm hopeful well I'm not even
hopeful I'm pretty convinced this will
be an astonishing performer allowing for
a full quarter wave on both the 80 and
the sixteenth meter bands and also the
flexibility select any band any band you
like without an antenna switch control
rinds or an 80 you so I'll see you next
time and I'll carry on with my
development
all right all the best all right for now
