Project TouCans with a Quarter Wave 20 Meter Ham Radio Vertical Antenna

Project TouCans now has a whip antenna option!

The kids—Mota and Tawnse—helped me assemble our first mostly proper ham radio vertical antenna on 20 meters this morning. We used the Goture pole I mentioned in the previous post. We're still dropping one side of the half-wave dip[ole eantenna off the balcony as a counterpoise/ground reflection for the new "quarter" wave vertical antenna. It's so nice to have data because I was immediately able to see that the poled version of the antenna is doing generally as well as the simply suspended veritcal antenna from the previous post did.

The pictures below show how we mounted the antenna. I tied a piece of twine near the end of the wire to the small string at the top of the pole. After that, I washi taped the antenna to each section of the carbon pole. The rig itself is sitting on the balcony with the other antenna wire draped doown to and across the ground below actins as a counterpoise.

As seen from the second kitchen window

Washi Tape Antenna Mounting

Rig Orientation

Counterpoise descending to the ground

I'm a little curious aobut what the chicken wire under the deck is doing to the SWR and to propagation. Our next plans are to try the antenna from a pier and simple drop the counterpoise into the Bay for a nice solid ground.

Here's a final superhero movie angle on the antenna from below just to round everything out.

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