09 July, 2011

Wire antennas for DX: Pair of doublets

At my summer cottage (58° N, 9° E), I have two crossed doublets with their centers on the top of a mast as shown in the image. Of course, I would like to have had a rotatable beam antenna, but lacking that, this is a wire antenna substitute with acceptable performance. I use them for DX-ing and participation in contests like the IARU HF contest in July. The first antenna is a 26.8 m (88 feet) doublet and the second one at 13.4 m (44 feet), which was erected last summer, is half this length. Switching between the antennas sometimes makes a difference of 4-5 S-units of signal strength, but usually less.