26 Jul 2020

Interesting antenna

Chris, M0PZC, has sent me details of an interesting VHF antenna called the Hourglass that can be made with simple materials. He has built one in his loft.

Next week we may have a sked on 2m FT8 or SSB to try it out between us. I think we are about 60-70 miles apart. It is bidirectional and has a very useful gain over a dipole.

I see the ARRL website has an article on this antenna available for non-members to read.

See http://www.arrl.org/files/file/QST/This%20Month%20in%20QST/December2018/Stanley.pdf
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2 comments:

  1. G1KQHSun Jul 26, 07:56:00 pm GMT+1

    Similar to Bow tie used on TV aerials: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bowtie_UHF_TV_antenna_1954.png


    73 Steve

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  2. AnonymousMon Jul 27, 04:06:00 pm GMT+1

    K4ERO who has worked on this antenna suggests that the hourglass (2 wavelength rectangular loop in hourglass form) functions differently:-

    <"Q. That antenna looks like it might be a take off from the old standby RCA TV Broadcast antenna seearound the country.
    A. Yes, this looks something like the RCA antenna, but they are very different in the feed method.
    They called that one a "batwing". You can Google it and see some pictures. The Batwing was a broadband dipole with 20% Frequency range with very low SWR, but no gain compared to a dipole. The hourglass has narrow bandwidth, but nearly 5 dB gain over a dipole."

    Chris mopzc

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