Home made Windom Antenna

I needed an HF antenna!

Well at least thats what I have been telling myself since I got the new UHF/VHF antenna setup.  So this weekend I decided I needed to get on the air at home with an HF base antenna.

So I had a chat with one of the members at the local Ham Radio club a nice chap called Phil G4UDU and he sold me some parts which consist of a 4:1 balun, some copper wire, insulators and coax.  It took me an hour to make a 40 meter Windom antenna and set it up from the top of the house to a 18' painters pole in the garden.

The SWR on the antenna without tuning is;

7.0mhz 2
7.1mhz 1:1

14.010mhz 4
14.350mhz 3.5

28mhz > 3
29.695mhz  1.1


Not perfect but looks quite good at 7.1mhz and 29mhz, so without pulling it down again and making it a little longer.  I hooked it upto my LDG-Z817 and decided today to spend a little time trying to get further than Yorkshire.

My very 1st look at 28mhz gave me two QSL's

28.517 LZ3FN/M Chirs in Bulgaria driving to Vaga, 5/9 signal report even though I'm running 5w QRP.

28.537 9H4CM Charlie in Gozo Malta, again on 5w QRP and 5/9 signal report.

Lastly I had a go on 40 meters which was very very busy and got a QSL from ON4PTC/P Archi 7.087mhz 5/9 from ZUID WEST VLAAMSE RADIO AMATEUR CLUB in Passiondale , this site was setup for Armistice day.

Wow amazing what a piece of wire can do.


Addendum, also had a QSL with 

SQ9SXS 7.175mhz 5w, station in Poland 5/5 signal report.