Fancy a project... so does anyone have plans/details on the Western HF 10 multi band antenna please ?

It's a commercial product, designed, built and sold by one person
there are no plans for it.

The guy was a bit of an ass when I tried to buy one from him.

Most commercial antennas rely on a bit of smoke and mirrors.
Looks like a trap dipole with a G5RV style feeder section, i'm sure you could knock one up, with some help from the more knowledgeable guys on here

It might be quite difficult to reproduce that antenna accurately. It uses loading coils rather than traps, but it's likely those loading coils do have a resonance somewhere in the HF band.

Of course, it's easy to build something similar, but without knowing the details of the coils it wont be possible to get exactly the same performance.

Steve G3TXQ

is it something like this?


http://www.k7mem.com/Electronic_Noteboo ... rtant.html

It looks like that, but its operation is more complex!

That's a single band dipole fed with coax, and inductively loaded so that the overall length can be smaller. The Western HF 10 is fed with a particular length of ladderline which gives it a low(ish) SWR on several bands - a bit like the G5RV/ZS6BKW. It is inductively loaded, but the construction of the loading coils means they will have a self-resonance somewhere in the HF band; and that means they will not behave like the simple inductors assumed in your link.

Steve G3TXQ

I have a multiband doublet made by Spiro in U.S. which I have been using for nearly 20 years now. It is 70ft long overall with a loading coil in each leg and fed with 450ohm ladder line to a proper balanced tuner. It tunes all bands and gets out fairly well except on 40m where I have been experimenting with different lengths of feeder as the tuning is a bit sticky on 40m. On top band I strap the feeders and operate it as a vertical Marconi and it performs quite well. In all those years I have only had to renew the wire twice. It is about 30ft up in the centre and drops down to about 15feet at each end. I've no idea what the inductance of the coils is and never tried to measure it. They are completely sealed in those white cartridge like plastic enclosures that are prevalent in U.S. products.
73 de Ken G3RFH

I am assuming from comments made earlier these loading coils are simple inductors, not traps.
Looking at the coils, they look very simply wound on specific diameter formers, to a specific length:
Looking at the balun, it sits at the end of the 450 Ohm ladder line exactly where you would expect it to be:
And overall view of complete antenna:
So we know the ladder line length, given in the spec, and I am sure some enterprising soul who has one, could measure the various antenna wire sections lengths!
We have a description of the type of balun.
So that leaves the "coils".
If somone measured the actual inductance, and taking the diameter of the former into account, easily measured, as they only seem covered by heatshrink, and a measure of the length of the coil under the heatshrink, again easily done from the protruding profile of the wire under the heatshrink, could we not work out the number of turns and wire diameter required, and make a half decent facsimily, that would perform reasonably close?

Dave stop being logical

Keith G0TSH

Ask Fred M0BZI I am sure he knows all about it.

Take a look at http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/9424?page=2

Particularly a review by G0STF says....

G0STF Rating: 3/5 Jan 30, 2013 12:48 Send this review to a friend
Is it a g5rv with 80mtr add on kit Time owned: more than 12 months
I have owned one for 2years and just had to change the flexiweave wire as mine had crumbled prob uv while I had it down I took it to bits then got all the wire and parts on eBay fixed my one and built another including the bifalar balun and traps total cost £35 better than the advertised £85. I used a half size g5rv with the 80mtr add on kit with a choke balun I found worked better. The build is excellent but expensive for a g5 clone.

So they should be able to answer your questions.

Worryingly on the makers qrz page http://www.qrz.com/db/M0BZI

I saw the following quotes......

it realy does tune all 10 hf bands 160m to 6m the noise level is very low,and the SWR is also low

Next was to make a special 4-1 balun

I've got one on my desk here.

I'm not too keen on giving all the measurements as the guy has obviously spent a lot of time designing this and it's only fair he makes a bit of money back.

I only gave it a quick test one afternoon due to the weather and illness, but I compared it against a 40m windom, 20m elevated vertical and half size gr5v, I only tested RX performance and not in any useful scientific way - just to see if it was good or rubbish and worth the effort of stringing it up properly. I couldn't get it very high due to planning restrictions. It was running 3m above the ridge of my barn - the roof of which is insulated with the the foil lined foam boards which tends to muck up most antenna

The things that struck me were

1) it is nicely made using good quality bits.
2) It gives a good SWR at low heights, <3:1 on 80,40,20,10 (forgot to test top band) actually it was much better than 2:1 on most bands but to be honest I was just looking at the analyser briefly and didn't bother to save the plots.
3) less noisy and stronger signals than with the windom on all bands (The windom sucks at lowish heights anyway)
4) about the same as the GR5V but did match and receive at 80m - no way of telling how well as I have nothing to compare it against.
5) Less noisy than the 20m vertical - I did let it run wspr for a few minutes on TX but to be honest some reports were up , some were down so I didn't really get any usable information. I think the position of the two antenna had more effect than anything else.

So first impressions - and they are just impressions is that

1) At least it isn't a snake oil product.
2) Given the space height restrictions I have it looks like it is going to be worth the effort of putting it up and trying it properly.
3) It's well made and should last
4) I doubt I would make one myself - to get to the same quality would probably cost me about £50+ in bits (although I'd have lots of stuff left over), would take me hours and probably wouldn't look as good or last as long. If I had most of the bits lying around then I might have given it a go.


The inductors are just that - wound on a 38mm O/D bit of pipe with heatshrink over. Each is 10cm long with the windings covering about 6.5cm

When the weather improves and I'm allowed up a ladder again I will give it a proper test. I just thought I'd add a little more information to the thread.

Richard
2E0VKK

Thats a fair whilst quick basic assessment!
I never thought it was snake oil, merely an experimented with version of stuff thats long tried and tested, so should work "OK" so to speak.
I have never had one, and was merely going off pictures to ascertain the coils were simple wound inductors, and I assume the balun is not rocket science either, and the rest is just down to suitable cable/feeder, cut to suitable lengths!
It is a sort of G5 plus 80 metre extention bits "type" of antenna, and will work no doubt very similarly!
Looking from pictures it seems well enough made, but the price just seemed a little high for what it is!
I have no doubt that many who purchase it will be delighted with their reasonably restricted for garden length, performance they get out of it!

From my findings and experiments so far these type of antennas have little or no benefit over any another antenna or bit of wire unless they are raised up to a substantial height above ground at least three quarters of a wave length with reference to the lower bands 40m, 80m, 160m. After all RF cannot read books and if it conducts then it transmits it, of course these are my findings. But I do admit some various styles do offer some advantages as in a quieter receive, now that could be either losses or actually an efficient receive performance and the jury is still out on that one!