I’m looking for some advice about selecting an antenna. I live in an apartment, so I can’t install anything permanent and can’t anchor anything to the house. There is a small backyard about 30ftx30ft, some arborvitaes but no strong trees. My radio is on the second floor. There are also two-story houses behind and on either side. I am currently a technician, planning to upgrade to general in the next few months. Right now I’m mostly interested in 10m and 20m, would also like 2m to reach my local repeater. I plan to use SSB and digital modes. Some possible options I’ve come up with: using a stand like this https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/wmo-18320 with a mast to put up an inverted V, but I haven’t done the measurements and math to see what the angle would be; my initial instinct is that it’s too sharp of an angle to be effective. I also looked at this https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxc-expedition or https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/but-hf9v, but I don’t have good line-of-sight with all the houses. I could do the mast stand and a mast with something like this https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/mkr-11-251.
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This is such a fun time!
Lots of good advice here. Bear in mind that multi-band antennae often have tradeoffs in terms of SWR.
Depending on how industrious you’re feeling, I’ve found tremendous success with a homebuilt vertical monoband ladder line j-pole. KB9VBR has an excellent build video. Downside is that on 20m, you’ll want a mast at least as long as the length of the antenna, but if it’s impractical, you can keep the radiating element vertical and the matching section horizontal, and even then if that’s not possible, the entire antenna can be horizontal.
Welcome to amateur radio!
From what I’ve been reading in QST, this sun spot cycle is opening up lots of dx on 10m
It’s a great time to be on 10m. My first QSOs went ~1200mi and I was only using a 1/4-wave CB mag mount whip on my car; imo the real fun is on 20m; from New Mexico I was making QSOs with Indonesia on SSB.
Follow your interests, you’re going to have a great time.
Those are all great options for sure. And while not an exact answer to your question, you could maybe go a bit simpler (and cheaper) for just 2, 10, & 20m like an end fed half wave.
Thoughts on how you’ll run it to your second floor?
I currently have an end fed half wave for 10 meter. I’ve been able to receive fairly well, picking up beacons from Australia (I’m in Washington state), but haven’t been able to make contacts. I just ordered a nanoVNA so I can check the swr with the feed line.
For the feed line, I’m planning to make a feedthrough window insert using some thin plywood and barrel connectors. I’ll put some mason line on the plywood so I can lower it to the ground during storms, raise it up to the window and connect when I’m operating.
you might have problems with your EFHW balun being too lossy/undersized. check if ferrite heats up when transmitting
you’re looking for 2 or 3, possibly more, separate antennas. consider: a groundplane, sleeve dipole, copper cactus, halo antenna or small yagi (2-3 el) for 2m; you might get away with operating them on temporary stand, or even from inside apartment. groundplane for 10m (can be made from wire; 10m is wide and you want separate, single band dipole for this reason); and some kind of wire antenna for 20m, maybe also for 10m. depending on conditions one or another might be better (vertical vs horizontal polarization, height above ground etc).
one way to make the latter is OCFD, this way you can make antenna for both 10m and 20m; for this one you’d need some matching scheme based on specific feedpoint position, specific coax lengths (5m is halfwave at 10m so won’t change impedance at this band, but can be used to match 20m) or 1:4 or some other balun. see there for more info you can also try a full-wave loop for 20m if you have enough space, it’ll work for 10m as well. same applies for matching, that is, if you don’t have autotuner (but where’s fun in that?). you can even make single band j-poles from ladder line/window line and wire even for 20m band, and string them from your window all the way to tree on the far end. you might want to put a pulley on a tree for that, and all antennas can this way be rolled and fit in your backpack, or maybe even pocket
these commercial antennas are expensive, you can have another radio for this kind of money
