Hf Skeleton Slot Antenna
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HF Skeleton Slot - An antenna system with a difference.
For many years at this QTH I have tried different wire antennas. Not being interested in rotary beams of the usual type, I have always use fixed wire antennas.
Over the years I came to the conclusion that for my particular purposes I needed something with gain that would work in more than one direction.
Hf Skeleton Slot Antenna, hollywood casino toledo floor map, rushmore casino login, praire edga slot winners. The design of this 6 m dipole antenna shall include the following design considerations:. The antenna must be compact. The antenna must be durable and secure. The antenna shall be installed on a 1.25 inch galvanized steel mast. The antenna shall be supported from a single point at its center. It shall not employ rope to tether it. The skeleton slot antenna has a calculated gain of 11.5 dbi on 28 MHz (including ground reflected gain, and as installed at my location). The D2T was 1 to 1.5 S- points down on the skeleton slot on 28 MHz. These measurements are not very precise but they do show that the manufacturer’s figures are reasonable. . The skeleton slot antenna for 144 MHz by VK5XU and VK2NO (April 1955, p2). Some considerations in the selection of an antenna tower by W4QDZ (April 1960, p 8). The HB9CV Swiss Quad by VK6DR (April 1965, p6). The corner antenna for 7 MHz by VK2SA (April 1967, p7). The ferrite balun by ZS1SC (April 1969, p9) PS: Want to read newer items on.
Having tried vertical beams and phased verticals all hanging from a nylon line, I decided to use the same nylon line to hold up a Lazy H antenna.
Hf Skeleton Slot Antenna Booster
The Lazy H works very well of course, Bi-directional, low angle and gain, BUT its a bit too big to rotate to fill in the directions 90° from its broadside line of fire and I don't have the room to put up a second Lazy H.
It was while playing around with this antenna using the MMANA-GAL modeling program that I tried bending the ends of the top dipole down and the ends of the bottom dipole up, still keeping the open wire phasing line between the two dipoles and fed in the center. I eventually ended up with the ends of the dipoles joined together and the horizontal top and bottom parts of the dipoles very much shortened and tried feeding at the junction of the dipole ends, getting rid of the phasing line between the two dipoles.
This arrangement now reminded me of the VHF skeleton slot antenna that I had seen in an old RSGB handbook, but a search on the Internet turned up nothing for an HF version.
More adjustments in the MMANA-GAL program showed that the antenna should perform well on all bands from 30 meters to 10 meters.
To get the low angle take off, the bottom of the antenna needs to be about 15 feet (4.5M) off the ground. It will still work if the bottom is lower but with a higher angle of take off.
I purchased a Pump up mast 50 feet (15m) and a small cord operated rotator. The top horizontal spreader is fixed to this rotator and the whole antenna hangs down from there.
The MMANA-GAL program can be found here.
Below are the dimensions I used for the Lazy-H antenna.
The plot below shows the gain and angle of elevation of the Lazy-H, as computed with MMANA-GAL. The antenna works well but is difficult to rotate.
The photograph below shows the antenna installed at my QTH.
The top spreader is 50 feet above ground. The bottom about 20 feet above ground level.
HF Skeleton slot
The drawing above shows the dimensions of my Skeleton Slot.
Hf Skeleton Slot Antenna Mounting Brackets
It can be easily rotated. It is bi-directional. It has high gain, low angle of elevation, and can work on all bands from 10 to 30 MHz.
Below are the plots of the Slot for the bands 20m, 17m, 15m and 10m.
Below is shown a 'BowTie' version.
It has slightly higher gain and lower angle of elevation.
The corresponding plots are shown below.
This picture shows the bowtie version at GW3RQT(SK)'s
The small marine ply support for the spreaders can be seen in the center.
The short horizontal bamboo in the center is to support the dog bone insulator and the open line feeder together with the vertical wires coming from the four corners.
Alan GW3RQT(SK) uses the same antenna but with smaller dimensions as his mast is only 30 feet high.
It is designed for 15m but works well on all bands from 10 to 20m.The plots are shown below.
He uses spreaders for the diagonals mounted on a rectangular piece of marine ply with U bolts.
The center is then raised to the top of the mast which gives a height of 15 feet from the bottom of the antenna above ground.
Constructional details
The antenna is very easy and inexpensive to make. For the sake of clarity, the constructional details are on another page.
Conclusions
The skeleton slot antenna is very cheap and simple to make - mine consists of three bamboo spreaders and copper wire!! It is fed in the middle of the center wire with open wire line which is taken to an antenna tuning unit in the shack.
Results have been excellent and quite a lot of DX has been worked on digital modes using 50 watts even through the odd pile up .. With such a broad horizontal pattern I only need to turn the antenna 90° to get pretty well full coverage of the world . For example with the antenna in a NE/SW direction, stations from K4 down to LU and JA down to VK6.
Have fun 73 Don G3VCG
My e-mail address is here
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Slot Antenna is an example of Aperture antenna. A rectangular slot is made on the conducting sheet. These slot antennas can be formed by simply making a cut on the surface, where they are mounted on.
Frequency Range
The frequency range used for the application of Slot antenna is 300 MHz to 30 GHz. It works in UHF and SHF frequency ranges.
Construction & Working of Slot Antennas
The use of slot antennas is well understood through its working principle. Let us have a look at the structure of a slot antenna.
When an infinite conducting sheet is made a rectangular cut and the fields are excited in the aperture (which is called as a slot), it is termed as Slot antenna. This can be understood by observing the image of a slot antenna. The following image shows the model of a Slot antenna.
The working of Slot Antenna can be easily understood through Babinet’s principle of optics. This concept gives an introduction to the slot antennas.
Babinet’s Principle
Babinet’s principle states that- “When the field behind a screen with an opening is added to the field of a complementary structure, the sum is equal to the field when there is no screen”.
The above images clearly explain the principle. In all the regions, which are non-collinear with the beam, the above two screens, in figures 1 & 2, produce the same diffraction pattern.
Case 1 − Consider a light source and a conducting plane (field) with an aperture before a screen. The light does not pass through the opaque area, but passes through the aperture.
Case 2 − Consider the light source and a conducting plane of the size of the aperture in the previous case, being held against the screen. The light does not pass through the plane but through the remaining portion.
Case 3 − Combine these two conducting planes of both the cases and put before the light source. The screen is not placed to observe the resultant combination. The effect of screen gets nullified.
Hf Skeleton Slot Antenna
Working of Slot Antenna
This principle of optics is applied to electromagnetic waves for the wave to get radiated. It is true that when a HF field exists across a narrow slot in a conducting plane, the energy is radiated.
The image shows a slot antenna, which explains well about its working.
Consider an infinite plane conducting screen is taken and pierced with apertures of desired shape and size and this will be the screen of slot antenna. Another screen is considered interchanging the places of aperture and screen area which is the complementary screen.
These two screens are said to be complementary as they result in complete infinte metal screen. Now, this becomes the slot antenna. The terminal impedance is quite desirable for the radiation.
Radiation Pattern
The radiation pattern of the Slot antenna is Omni-directional, just like a half-wave dipole antenna. Take a look at the following illustration. It shows the radiation pattern of Slot antenna drawn in Horizontal and Vertical planes respectively
Advantages
The following are the advantages of Slot antenna −
- It can be fabricated and concealed within metallic objects
- It can provide covert communications with a small transmitter
Disadvantages
The following are the disadvantages of Slot antenna −
- Higher cross-polarization levels
- Lower radiation efficiency
Applications
The following are the applications of Slot antenna −
- Usually for radar navigational purposes
- Used as an array fed by a wave guide