Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Golf Ball Retriever Antenna

This is what I call 15 dollars antenna, I am dirt cheap, especially after spent $$$ on my yaesu FT817ND, so spending another $$ for antenna is quite too much, :-D.

I was looking around about a month and finally stuck to this Walmart Golf Ball Retriever, it is telescopic and made from aluminium, and if it fully extended, the length is about 15 feet, almost close enough for my 10M band requirement, so this is how it look :



<----- the one on the left, to became something on the right ---->

I am choosing gamma match to feed the antenna because of availibility of the matterial, even for the gamma match, I made it using plastic straw combined with aluminium foil, really dirt cheap I am. :-D

I include two photos below for that gamma match making,
on the picture if you notice, there are 2 coils that basically compensate the length of this 15 feet only ball retriever to work on 10M band (and CB band as well), I use the calculation from this page, Electrically Short Half-Wave Dipole.

the result is very good, SWR is around 1.2, and with 5Wats FT817ND reaching another island is easy (I live in Hawaii), and on the right time, I able to do DX to mexico, its really fun, but I cant put this antenna permanently outside because of its constructions, well how long it can be for plastic straw to survive outside ? :-D, so as for now, I mount the antenna on tripod.









here is my gamma match constructions, really poor man DIY :

1 comment:

Golfschlaeger said...

Golf balls high off, but first we want to take the time to explain to you what a disability: a report of golf. Chances are, if you have watched the golf tournament you have heard the word handicap, of which more than once. It 's very simple you see, the smaller side has a better player you are.

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