GW4VXE's Station Diary

During the winter when the winds are high, I use a shorter vertical than the DX Commander Signature 9. Although the Signature 9 would probably cope - it flexes hugely and is anxiety inducing to watch in a storm. So, a couple of years ago, I decided to build an antenna which would cope with all but the worst winter storms.

I had a fibreglass pole which I could use and I decided to try running quarter wave lengths of wire up the outside of the pole, taping them on. I started off with quarter waves for 10, 15 and 17m. I used the lengths from the DX Commander User Guide on page 8 - I used the same lengths as on the Signature 9. Next, I added a wire for 20m and that too worked alright.

I wondered whether I could do something for 30m. as that's quite a useful band for working SOTA stations as well as DX! The element length for 30m was a bit long at around 7m and if I extended the pole to that length, it would start to be quite whippy in a high wind (which I didn't want as that was why I built the aerial in the first place!). So I decided to stick with the pole length of around 5m and run the 30m element back down the other side of the pole.

To my surprise this worked! The SWR is a little high at around 1.5:1 but it's quite useable. Does it radiate? It does! It's fine for semi-local QSOs around Europe and just recently I worked J51A with it. It does struggle on real DX contacts though, but it's better than nothing.

The only band I haven't mentioned is 12m. The curious thing is that one day I tried it to see what the SWR would be like and to my surprise it was ok and it's capable of working DX.

So, there are 5 lengths of wire on the pole. The pole uses plastic clips to stop the sections slipping down inside each other (DX Commander sell these). The wires are simply taped onto the pole. I crimped tags onto the ends of each element and clamp these onto to a bolt, where the feed can be attached. The pole sits on the same ground post as the DX Commander Signature 9 and uses the same set of radials.

I'm really pleased with how well this works and how it keeps me on the air in all but the worst of the winter storms.

I do want to credit Callum at DX Commander for the inspiration to build this really useful aerial. Thanks Callum!