quick aerials

went to my club night last night at the southport and district arc,we made a dipole for 40m.we used philips speaker cable,we did a ruff calculation (468/f) with abit extra.put it on the analizer and it was tuning to just below with a swr of 1:2.with a few bits of trimming of both ends we got it tuned correct with a swr of 1:2.mounted it in a ^ at about 25ft.from start to finish was about 10mins.just goes to prove you dont need speed £££ on aerials.

Back in my SW broadcasting days I made an antenna just like that to go with each of my 48 meter crystals.
We use to use an old CB antenna as a mast, this we drilled through & then used nails to hold it in up. This we found to be simple, reliable & effective for field operation.
The mast was either used on a stake pushed in the ground or used to hang the antenna in a tree with.
We then used a washing machine outflow inverted U bend pipe as the centre. This went over the mast & had a coat hanger taped to it for tree mounting.
The coax was fed up the bottom of one side of the U bend & the far side of the bend then had two holes cut in either side for the antenna to exit from, these were then sealed. This gave a good all weather antenna.
The antenna ends were often tied to a stone or crops etc etc, with the antenna ends less than one foot from the ground, these are VERY effective antennas.