G5RV Jr made with Speaker Wire
My G5RV
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2020-05-30 A year ago we packed up our house intending to move. I took down all my antennas. One of those was my faithful old G5RV. A G5RV has been a shack stable of mine for many years. I carefully rolled it up and put it in a box. Yesterday something moved me to put it up again.
Our property has lots of trees, several very large. Many huge oaks. I'm sure every one of those trees purposely reached out to entangle my wire as i worked on putting that G5RV up. But I prevailed.
One thing I recall about this antenna is that it can be prone to RF in the shack. I needed an RF choke. But what to use as a "coil form?" Then it hit me, toilet paper! The result is shown in the picture. I don't know whether it works but I don't have any RF in the shack.
My timing was perfect. There is a world-wide CW contest under way today. The CW portion of every band is loaded. Result? I logged twenty one QSOs: three on 6 meters, ten on 10 meters, two on 15 meters, four on 20 meters and two on 40 meters using the G5RV.
The ten and six meter openings were fun. Low band noise and clear signals. Including today's I've had fourteen 6 meter contacts in the last 13 years and just 65 contacts on ten meters. So this was a good day! And as a last resort, I know where to find a role of TP
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Toilet paper Choke!
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2016-06-26 As noted under my 2016 Field Day Planning I built a 40 meter doublet using speaker wire to see if it would be a better antenna than other options I was considering for Field Day. And as reported there, I was disappointed with the results. I also mentioned that after comparing various end fed options as well as the 40 meter doublet with my old home built G5RV Jr, I pretty much settled on the G5RV Jr as my antenna of choice. It was made from 25-1/2 foot (each leg) old style copper clad steel wire for the radiators and 450 ohm ladder line for the 16-1/2 foot feed-line making it fairly heavy and unwieldy. My biggest complaint is that steel wire prefers to kink as its natural condition!
With a five day family vacation at my son's place in Minnesota coming up and my FT817nd and auto tuner all wire tied together in one unit I began thinking about taking a station along. But I don't want to take that "messy" G5RV Jr. That started me thinking about cutting the 40 meter doublet down to match the G5RV Jr. So a few minutes ago I did that. As with the doublet the radiators are single speaker wires which I pulled apart. The feed-line is simply the speaker cable wires un-separated, meaning they are only separated about 1/8th inch not the inch or so of 450 ohm ladder line. Initial checks of SWR look good. After the intensity of Field Day there are almost no signals on the bands. I guess everyone is burned out! So I haven't actually used it on the air. Hence too soon to make a judgment. One thing is for sure. It is MUCH lighter and easier to both take down and to deploy than the "messy" one I patterned it after.
With a five day family vacation at my son's place in Minnesota coming up and my FT817nd and auto tuner all wire tied together in one unit I began thinking about taking a station along. But I don't want to take that "messy" G5RV Jr. That started me thinking about cutting the 40 meter doublet down to match the G5RV Jr. So a few minutes ago I did that. As with the doublet the radiators are single speaker wires which I pulled apart. The feed-line is simply the speaker cable wires un-separated, meaning they are only separated about 1/8th inch not the inch or so of 450 ohm ladder line. Initial checks of SWR look good. After the intensity of Field Day there are almost no signals on the bands. I guess everyone is burned out! So I haven't actually used it on the air. Hence too soon to make a judgment. One thing is for sure. It is MUCH lighter and easier to both take down and to deploy than the "messy" one I patterned it after.