John MacDougall, Annie Laurie, #26
Here are 2 photos of a nice fun antenna project. If you're not "into" radios, perhaps it's not of much interest but having a spare / aux. HF SSB / HAM antenna can be of some use.
In over 30 years of HF Radio (Ham and Marine), I've made my share of antennas and here's a simple multiband dipole, a "parallel-wire" dual-band dipole, for 12 mhz and 14mhz.
It works VERY well and was easy to make but since it is made of Polyethylene coated copper wire, and is fed with coax thru the companionway, my exact antenna is not a permanent one. I made it for fun and as a back-up antenna, should my Icom AT-140 antenna tuner fail. (I also have an emergency HF SSB / Ham antenna stowed below, along with a small manual antenna tuner to be used in case of dismasting, etc.)
There's some guys who swear that vertical dipoles outperform an insulated backstay antenna. And while, it's true in some specific cases (if you had a poor RF Ground for your backstay antenna, and/or were operating on certain frequencies where the backstay would make a higher angle of radiation than the dipole, etc), most will find a properly installed insulated backstay antenna SYSTEM (including a GOOD RF Ground system), to be a much better all around antenna system.
(Click on picture for full size)
