Subject: Long wire not straight.

[Alan Pilot]

Wanting to put a longer long wire up but have a small garden
At the moment i have a 10m length running almost North to South and it works well.
Wanting to put a 20m length up but it would only go like a reversed 7 but the extra would be running almost East to West.
Would this work would it be ok.
Thanks in advanced.

[Alan Pilot]

?????????
A lot of views any ideas.
What i am getting at is the fact that the second run of the wire would run at a about a 70 degree angle from the first half.
Would this cause a problem.
Would save me a load of hassle putting it up to try it out as i am disabled it's a struggle.

[MrWeetabix]

Well I havrnt commented because the only experience I have is of an OCF Windom-type antenna and even then I only dog-legged the short leg of the antenna. Worked amazing though to be fair, but it was a full size windom and I had A LOT of wire in the air!

If you’re running at a right angle, it will probably not make a massive difference to SWR etc, but in terms of radiation pattern it may be more-directional in a particular direction that others.

Its a bit like Cobweb antenna with 70mhz I discussed a while back, the 6m and 4m elements will work, but with an odd radiation pattern

Thread link - viewtopic.php?t=58285

[Alan Pilot]

MrW
Thanks for the reply i will have a read on that link.
The 10 meter length i have up now works well but not so good after 20m 40m is workable but not that good that's why i thought of changing to a 20 meter length of wire.
Will have to give it a try if we get a dry day soon.

[MrWeetabix]

can you put both up perhaps? or would you need to sacrifice one to make way for the other?

[Alan Pilot]

One only very short on garden space.
Looking like i will just have to pick a good day and try it.

[MrWeetabix]

Sometimes, where everyone’s circumstance is unique, you just have to ‘suck it and see’

[G8GGP]

If you have room for a pole how about an inverted L?

[Alan Pilot]

Problem with the inverted L would be Hight.
Corner to opposite diagonal that is is about 11 meters so i would need a big pole.
Came across a book actually found a add on the bay for it and ordered it from amazon.
From looking it up it has some good ideas so project on hold till it arrives.

[G8GGP]

Yes that’s a great book, I have it as well.

[MrWeetabix]

To be fair, if an inverted L works (Thats what my end-fed is actually) then an l-shape on the horizontal plane should also work, but again with a slightly different radiation pattern. It should still tune.

Perhaps you could simply add 10m length to the end of the current 10m antenna, then if its crap its easy to disconnect and return to normal :-)

[MrWeetabix]

How did you get on?

[Alan Pilot]

Still not done anything waiting for the book might get some ideas from it.
To be honest the 10meter length is working well went on 40m yesterday and some people where very surprised after giving me a signal report and then me telling them i was only running 10w.
I will report back when it's sorted i just would like to try a 20 meter length to see if it's any better on 40/80m.

[MrWeetabix]

I look forward to seeing how you get on. Also if you find any magic antennas in that book

[PARSNIPHUNTER]

The 20 meter length will work well and the fact that it covers all points of the compass will also help. I had a rando m wire in a very small garden that started at the floor ran up to the gutter then down the garden at an angle down to about 4 feet across the back fence back up to the gutter and then down to near floor level. It worked a treat have also done the same thing in the loft space.