Building dipole antenna

**crazy_carpenter** · 08-18-2012, 07:58 PM

I ended up not even bothering with it. After doing the dirknerkle wirenut thing with the ground wire and pouring in a few sticks of hot glue to hold it all together, I ended up with two nice insulated leads coming out of each side of the glue ball. Soldered the bare wires to the leads and measured from the middle of the glue ball up each bare wire to get my freq length and made a mark. Then I put my zip tie terminating loop on that mark and soldered them up. Stuffed it all in the pvc pipe and zip tied her up. Since I only used a 3 foot piece of coax and it is staying inside next to the xmiter, I didn't use caps, just drilled a hole in the end of the pipe for the zip tie.

Now for the test. I connected it all together, powered up, and plugged the audio feed into the puter playing a nice long youtube music vid (Tab Benoit... one of my favorites). Then me and the wife went for a drive around the neighborhood. The result : Great ! If you can get a good clean signal in your car before you can even see the lights or the tune to sign, that is good enough for me.

I would post pics, but I just upgraded to a 4g Samsung smartphone and so far it is smarter than I am.

**Jrd** · 08-18-2012, 08:32 PM

As long as it works and it's safe that's all that really matters. Glad you got it working!

**crazy_carpenter** · 08-22-2012, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by Jrd

As long as it works and it's safe that's all that really matters. Glad you got it working!

The best part of that whole operation was seeing the grin on my wife's face because she finally saw a tangible result from all this money I've been spending on this new found hobby.

**Jrd** · 08-23-2012, 10:37 PM

Originally Posted by crazy_carpenter

The best part of that whole operation was seeing the grin on my wife's face because she finally saw a tangible result from all this money I've been spending on this new found hobby.

And heard an audible result!

**Amigorick** · 12-12-2012, 08:43 AM

Hello !! Just curious, but would it be possible to use to "replacement" type telescoping antenna's with the built-in loop on the end for attaching them. I wondered if you could connect them at the center, properly spaced apart of course, and connect the leads at that point. Then maybe you could slide them in or out for the wave-length you want to transmit. It would make them "adjustable" in case the need to change to a new frequency became necessary. Then you would not have to build a new dipole every time. Would this work???? Just wondering...

**crazy_carpenter** · 12-12-2012, 09:12 AM

Originally Posted by Amigorick

Hello !! Just curious, but would it be possible to use to "replacement" type telescoping antenna's with the built-in loop on the end for attaching them. I wondered if you could connect them at the center, properly spaced apart of course, and connect the leads at that point. Then maybe you could slide them in or out for the wave-length you want to transmit. It would make them "adjustable" in case the need to change to a new frequency became necessary. Then you would not have to build a new dipole every time. Would this work???? Just wondering...

I have seen just what you described for sale on ebay. How well they work, I couldn't say. http://www.ebay.com/itm/FM-1-2-Wave-...item1e65bb4474