LCARA HAM Radio: Palomar Engineers OCF Dipole Antenna!!!!!
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- čas přidán 23. 07. 2020
- KY4BDP, Brian, takes the PAL-OCF-8010 antenna from Palomar Engineers for a spin. Will this become his new horizontal reference antenna for his HF base station?
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#LCARA #PalomarEngineers #OCF-Dipole - Věda a technologie
I called up your video as I am working the kinks out of my OCF 40m dipole and caught your reference to "black flag days in the USMC." A day late, but Happy 247 USMC birthday. I spent a few of those black flag days myself around. Thanks for your service on this Veteran's Day. Semper Fi and 73 OM
Joey KI4EO
Excellent video!! thank you for taking the time to post. 73,
Thank You for this video. I found it to be very informative for wire antennas. I prefer wire as it allows me easer antennas to work with. This video taught my how the check SWR fro the front panel of the radio. Now I can see how good my current system is working.Thanks again.
Great video, I’ve been building dipoles, new general license and learned a lot here. Keep it up!!!
This is incredibly informative, thank you! I've never tried an OCF dipole with my rig but I might have to give it a whirl. Cheers and 73!
I know this video is older but enjoyed it. I have Palomar's BAS-71 EFHW and I can get a reasonable tune 6-160m. I have it in a sloper cfg. 30ft at the feed point and 20ft at the far end. This is based on my yard layout etc. Thanks for the video!
I home brewed an ocf dipole. Installed with feed point at 38 ft., the long leg ending at 24 ft., and the short leg ending at 30 ft. I shortened both legs to get it in range (take twice as much off the long end as the short). I’ve recently made a contact to Italy with a 59 signal report on 100 watts. I don’t need a tuner because I’m getting SWR’s in the range of 1.1 to 1.5 on all bands. Very good design and you can make your own for about 50 dollars.
Great video Brian KY4BDP.
Thanks!
Thank you for this one. Ive been looking at other antenna options and these OCF dipoles. I have a 20 and 40 meter wire up on a 1:1 balun (N/S at 28' respectivly) and works real good on 17, 20, 80 but not so well for 40. IDK. This OCF dipole seems very promising. Thank you Brian for putting this one up!
Glad I could help
Thank you for demonstrating this antenna! I’ve been leaning towards this particular antenna recommended by a local Ham to get me on the air!
Thanks again! I’m sold!!
73
KC1AJD
ANOTHER FANTASTIC VIDEO THANKS 73 from kb2uew
Good job Brian, very complete.
Glad you enjoyed it
great video! gives me plenty of ideas on what i need to do at my QTH in order to get on HF! thanks for posting video
Glad it was helpful!
Hello Brian (KY4BDP)! I enjoyed and appreciated this video. I am currently making an OCF dipole for 80, 40, 20, and 10 meters. Anything else I get will just be a bonus. I am primarily shooting for 80, 40, and 20 meters and I am especially hoping it picks up 80 well. I am excited about being able to hear the 80 meter Kentucky phone net. I sometimes get to hear parts of it with the little antenna that’s on my shortwave radio. I’m building this antenna to work on my shortwave radio now and then move it to an HF rig as soon as I get one. I’m studying for my General ticket now and can’t wait to get it! Maybe I’ll hear you on the 80 meter phone net. I live in Warren County between Bowling Green and Glasgow. Not too far away. Thanks again for sharing this video! 73 Todd (KM4OCJ)
@Todd Gilliam - Good luck with your antenna! I don't participate very often on the KY Phone Net, but we definitely have strong local Nets on 2M. You could try and reach out to us, but Echolink is probably your best bet. Great to hear from another KY HAM. Thanks for watching!
Very impressive dipole. Heavy-duty balun and choke, all in one housing. Just installed one in my attic. Not perfect, but it works great. Just worked a bunch of VK’s on 20 this afternoon. I’ll be using my FT-897 and matching with an LDG AT-897.
I love mine as well. Thanks for watching!
For the last few days, I've been checking out Palomar antennas. This video popped up in my feed this morning....and you're located just sw of me.
Thanks for the review.
Very cool!
@@LCARAHAMRadio you gave me the tech and general exams on the 25 March '22....got my callsign this morning. KO4ZTP.
Maybe I can come to a meeting sometime. I'm out of Rockcastle.
Thanks Brian...great video..I am installing an OCF antenna at 30' and all horizontal..three supports...hope it works like yours! 73...KH6UX in Illinois... Van
Let us know what kind of SWR numbers you get on some of the bands. Be interesting to compare.
No-code radio at it's best!!
I can tell you are a pretty recent ham. Back in the early days for me the bands were CW and Voice. The only real digital allowed was RTTY operated in the CW frequencies. Since dropping the code requirements it seems even referring to those segments the reference has been dropped.
What is a baylun? Out west we say balun. 😆
Awesome. Thank you for the video. How far should the feed point be from the tower? I am thinking of using 3m (10ft)plastic pipe fitted inside a steel pipe welded to the tower, to step the antenna out from the steel tower. Will the tower still effect the antenna?
Brian, thanks for the video. I don't have room for the 80m version but can probably shoehorn in the 40-6. What is your method of attaching the legs to the poles? Same question for the feed box.
Pete
AD2EH
Thanks for the video.
Just last week I managed to get the same Palomar Engineers antenna up in the air as my first "real" HF antenna. Unfortunately I was only able to get the feed point up 23 feet, and the ends in the ballpark of 15 -- though I hope to improve on this next summer. I noticed my untuned SWRs were a bit higher than yours, typically around 5:1 -- though my LDG AT-200 seemed to do fine with that. Since I don't have much experience on HF, does this sound reasonable and like a workable situation to you, at least for the first winter? I know the take-off angle is going to suffer, but I figure a compromised antenna in the air is better than no antenna at all.
Just like you I found 17m to have the best SWR, around 1.2:1.
@Brent Casavant - If you can tune the setup to something your radio likes, it will work. Ideally, you would want to get the center-point up to the 30+ feet in the air. I initially did some tests at a shorter height and got similar results as you. So the extra height will should make a difference. Hope you get the same great results I did when making contacts. I'm very pleased with my setup.
Was that an external tuner you were using, or the one in the IC-7300?
I have an OCF Dipole rated for 160-6 meters. My antenna is mounted horizontally with the feed at the end of a standoff arm 4 feet away from the tower at about 30 feet. I was wondering if you or anyone else has run an SWR test on all the bands vs height of the dipole? And thank you for this excellent presentation.
if its "BALanced to un-BALanced" How does it turn into a BAYlun?
Thanks for sharing
I just got a 40-10 ocfd from Paloma would be great to see a video on it but I’ll see what it can do myself hopefully it does better on 20 meters than yours did. Thanks for the video
Real bummer I had to take it down in a nutshell the power company had to run overhead powerlines right beside it so I couldn’t leave it up really bummed
@Spike Spiegel it worked really good I never really got to try it on 10 m or 6 m but 40 worked really good 20 also. Really wish I didn’t have to take it down But they ended up having to put above ground power wires right where it was and I have no other place to put it back up. so I also had to move my band trap vertical and that is the only one I have up now. But I definitely like the dipole better
@Spike Spiegel mine was pointing north and south the long leg was pointing south it worked great I got into New York on it in North Carolina but I also got down into Baja Mexico I check in on the Baja net every day at 8:00 am pt. The long leg was supported by a one inch o.d metal fence pole the short end a tree The main mast was 30 feet up in the air and attached to a pole of a cyclone fence as well as this is the south end pole
Great video. I had been considering putting up an OCF dipole, but had several people comment that it wouldn't be effective at the height I was planning on, which was feed point mount of 40 feet. Everyone keeps saying 50 feet is absolute minimum. So very glad to see this one performed well when mounted just 30 feet at feed point. I'm wondering what kind of distance you've been able to achieve; how far on DX contacts? I think this might be a viable antenna option for me after all.
@Brando Kitsune - I've been able to make contacts in California, Montana going west and all of the East coast.
“Futz” is also a technical term used in New Hampshire.
I wonder if it would work on 2 meters and with an external tuner if it would work on 160 meters.
I'm not sure, but would be worth a try. Thanks for the comment!
I'm not sure if the IC-7300 works this way, but my IC-7000 automatically selects RTTY when using the plot measurement. I bought a Rig Expert antenna analyzer and its been a really great tool for measuring SWR, impedance, inductance, reactance, etc, and saves me from subjecting my transmitter to high SWR. 73 KD5YOU
Thanks for this video, even though you can use this antenna on all those bands, the results are not as good as Palomar advertises. They show a bit lower SWR on all the advertised bands.
Does this antenna bridge the Cumberland Gap?
It seems to me that this antenna is designed to be used primarily on the warc bands
Good morning. I ordered the Palomar 8010 yesterday. I am wondering how your 8010 has been performing since you have had a little time to operate on it?
Joe Craft - It's done very well for me. The feed point needs to be at the height specified to get the best results without a tuner. We aren't looking to put out another video at this time on this antenna. Thanks for watching!
I purchaseed the 40 to 6M OCF from Palomar Engineering and installed it up today at 30 feet up as inverted V with 50 feet of RG213 and my luck is better than yours, here are my readings:
40M, CW portion...1.5
SSB portion 2.0
20M
all the band CW and SSB is flat at 1.1
15M
all the band CW and SSB.. 1.7
17M not a good one, all band 3.0 BUT the radio builtin tuner made it flat at 1.1
12M
all band cw and SSB is 1.7
10M
CW is 2.0 and SSB is 1.8
6M all band cw and SSB is almost flat at 1.2
Reception is very clear, as quite as the bazooka dipole I removed.
Its definitively a well design OCF antenna.
I'm currently using an Alpha Delta DX CC, but haven't been very impressed with it. Do you think pal 80-10 would be a noticable upgrade over my DX-CC?
@Steven johnson - Never used the DX-CC, but have heard good things about them. As for a comparison, no idea, but the Palomar OCF works awesome for me. KY4BDP
Very good report on the OCF antenna. have you seen the newer OCF that is 33 feet shorter and has better coverage. I can supply you with one for testing if you wish. If i had an email i could send you the SWR chart for it. by the way it does have a low SWR on 6 and 2 meters but is very directional.
Hello Don Johnson - Head over to LCARA.net and you can find contact information. Thanks for watching!
@@LCARAHAMRadio how do i contact YOU not the rest of the network
Brian, I was reading up on this OCF dipole and it recommended to stay less than 50' of coax regarding SWR.
"Any length of 50 ohm feed line ok but longer feed lines over 50 feet may show reduced SWR on some bands due to losses in feed line and soil conductivity, nearby objects, etc."
MaynI ask, what type and length of coax did you use?
Hey Joe, yes, I read the same thing, but in my case, my length of coax is around 60'. Given that all the bands for me were either bang on or tunable with the IC-7300, I'm not too worried about it.
I think "reduced SWR" means lower SWR, so longer coax would be better.
Thanks for video. The way my trees are it would put the antenna legs flat but not straight like clock hands of 6 O'clock . They would be more like the clock hands of about 5 O'clock. Would this be ok or would it mess up the pattern and think it was an inverted V that fell over on it side?
@forget_your_life - The actual orientation of the two wires will be dependent on your space and this may weaken your ability to make contacts in one direction typically. The recommendation for this antenna is both ends at least 45 degree to 180 degrees in relation to the ground. Sometimes people are more interested in long-distance contacts and a having the wires in an inverted-v make a lot of sense. In other cases, having the wires mostly parallel to the ground will provide better NVIS operation for closer contacts and stations. Play with it and see what you observe. Report back and let us know!
LCARA HAMRadio I didn’t have much luck with it. Was only able to get the box up 25 feet. I think it needs to be more like 50ft. Swr was horrifying
@forget_your_life - They really don't recommend this being any lower than 30'. You may want to look at another way to move it another 5-7' higher. It will make a big difference on some bands. Also, be sure there aren't any metal objects nearby as that also throws everything off.
You really need an antenna analyzer to properly trim the wire to get your optimal resonance instead of relying on the tuner.
What is a BAY-lun ? I know what a BALun is. Think of BALANCE Unbalance - Hence BALUN - not BAY lun - Just saying.... Thanks for the video.
Palomar engineers has earned itself a somewhat bad reputation for being customer hostile. I ordered about $200 worth of products from PE, and after 6 weeks received nothing, despite have a charge on my credit card. I contacted PE, and was told the products were out of stock and would have to wait. After more time, I never received my order and decided to chalk it up to a $200 lesson learned. Don't trust Palomar Engineers.
My home roof is metal. My mancave roof is metal where radio will be and an out building roof too.
What do you suggest for all this metal?
Can i mount above roofs or should I stay over asphalt?
TIA
Matt KD6ILY Yerington NV
@Matt Bowman - lots of metal means lots of potential problems. You either need lots of height above the metal roof or move away from the building as much as possible. Antenna placement can be very challenging with your situation. It may take you several attempts to find the best fit.
Metal roof, solar panels equals forget HR!!! JohnBoyUtah KJ7tBR! 😎🇺🇸📡🎙
3.0 Win? Huh?
It's obvious that you do not care about us cw operators or the digi guys. But you could at least include us in the swr testing of this antenna. Thanks K3VZ
@Donald Swank - We definitely don't have a bias against CW or digital modes. We in fact will be investigating the lower spectrum on the bands in the new year. My apologies we didn't cover your area of interest this time. Stay tuned as we cover digital modes on many of the same antennas we have reviewed thus far. Thanks for watching!
@@LCARAHAMRadio Thanks for the reply. Other than only covering half of the product you were testing, it was an interesting video. But why would you review only half of it. After watching your video, I have no idea if I would buy that antenna or not! FYI, I used a 80m Carolina Windom with a 21 foot vertical radiator from Radio Works. Feed it with 134 feet of coax and covered all bands, edge to edge, cw and phone, including the 3 WARC bands. I worked Dxcc on all bands, plus on cw, digi and phone. All with 100 or 200 watts. It did not cover 160m and I never tried it on 6m. Radio Works is out of business because the owner retired. Will be a regular watching more of your videos. Thanks again for responding. K3VZ