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Cylinder dipole
Click on the pictures to enlarge |
After the experiment with the
Red Bull antenna, I built a second Cylinder Dipole with two energy drink cans of 500 ml. The cans together with the coil resonate at
16 MHz.
The 300 ohm ribbon is connected to the point at the top of the coil (in the picture) with the red and yellow alligator clips (See the
white arrow in the top of the picture). The antenna is hanging from the ribbon. I can
tune the cylinder dipole for the a SWR of 1;1 with my symmetrical tuner.
Cylinder dipole
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PA1B Cylinder Dipole. The current at the surface of the cylinder generates the field. |
Closed cylinders
In this antenna I used the complete can, without removing the top and the bottom of the can, to keep the construction simple.
Closed cylinders are
much stronger than open cylinders.
500 ml cans
Although it is not easy to compare two antenna's, that were used in
two different contests a week apart, the cylinder dipole
with the 500 ml cans is
probably better than the Red Bull antenna.
In general the
cylinder dipoles are very quite on receive.
On the air
In the H.M. King of Spain contest I made QSO's on 7 MHz, 14 MHz and 21 MHz.
Most QSO's were made on 21 MHz with a power of 3.6 W to 360 mW all over Europe.
This cylinder dipole with two 500 ml cans works better on 21 MHz than on 14 MHz.
The antenna is "detuned" to 21 MHz with the symmetrical tuner.
On 7 MHz it was very difficult to make a QSO. The QSO's on 7 MHz were made over a short distance. NVIS. I estimate that the lower efficiency at 7 MHz reduces the signals with 10 dB.
The table below shows the DXCC countries per band and per power category.
Across the Atlantic
I very much enjoyed the QSO with
N1KWF in New Hampshire over a distance of 3490 Miles, with a power of 3.6 Watts.
Please notice that that the cylinder dipole with 500 ml cans:
* has a length of
15" (38 cm)
* is placed in the shack,
* at a height of
4 meter above the ground.
Click on the table below, to read the hand written log, in which I write down the power in each QSO.
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List of QSO's with the cylinder dipole, with cans of 500 ml PA1B |
The QSO's in red are more than
1000 Miles per Watt QSO's.
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DXCC's per band and per power category PA1B
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