Off-Center Fed Dipoles.pptVIP

Off-Center Fed Dipoles Practical Applications Why? Looking for solutions for low band antennas Was abused by a counterpoise as a child Looking for multiband solutions Traditional low band wire arrays use dipoles or inverted vees Applications to driven parasitic arrays Off Center Fed Dipole Basics Half wave resonant antenna at lowest frequency of operation Even Harmonic resonances V/I ratio is approximately constant 160M: 160, 80, 40, 20, 17, 12, 10 80M: 80, 40, 20, 10 Fed 1/3 of the way from the end vs. in the middle Feed point impedance is approximately 200? 4:1 current balun does the trick OCFD Data 80M Used for 10 years 136 feet in length located at abt 30 feet Fed 44.5 feet from one end Resonant on 80M, 40M, 20M, 10M no tuner 160M measured data Recent addition 264 feet long located at abt 80 feet Fed 88 feet from one end; 4:1 homebrew balun 200? on 160M and 166? on 80M at resonance 2:1 BW: 200 kHz on 160M, 260 kHz on 80M Why They Work It’s just a dipole! But ? wave resonant element, then harmonic wire Voltage/Current relationship at 1/3 feed point provides essentially constant ratio on even harmonics Broadside null on harmonics Current Distribution on a Dipole Current Voltage at Fundamental I V at 2nd Harmonic I V at 4th Harmonic I V at 8th Harmonic But what about the 6th harmonic? Feed point is at a current minimum Very high impedance I V at 6th Harmonic Bad Dog! And Odd Harmonics? Same problem: Current minimum I V at 3rd Harmonic Bad Dog! Basic Gain Plots 160M center fed dipole at 80 feet 160M OCFD at 80 feet 160M OCFD on 80M x2 160M OCFD on 40M x4 160M OCFD on 20M x8 160M OCFD on 10M x16 Geometry/Height Old 80M design: 45.3 ft, 90.7 ft; 30 ft high New 160M design: 88ft, 176 ft; 80 ft high Both use 4:1 Guanella balun design 80M variation: 45/65 ft flat+26 ft dropper Feed point impedance at resonance drops as effective height above ground decreases Recommend 1/3 λ up for 4:1 balun to work well 4:1 Guanella Current Balun 80