Help & Advice

Hi Alan,    I note you say you are disabled, are you able to put things together, do a little soldering ? Reason I ask is I have made a couple of antennas during this lockdown, pretty easy if your disability does not affect your hands. I made two copper J-poles, one 70cms and the other dual band. I also made a slim jim, again using 15mm copper tube. I have had very good results from these, hitting the repeaters in my area. The best part of this is they are not on the roof outside, one on the corner of my shack about 12ft up and another sitting in my loft. I apologise if this is not possible for you, but  well worth a try if you can 

73’s

Bob (M7ASC)

Unfortunately, I'm not able to do such things. I have early onset dementia. Some days I am fine and can operate close to normal, others I would forget which end of the soldering iron to hold or even what it was. Many thanks for taking the time and effort to reply. 

Regards, Alan

external HF antennas are large, so choices depend on size of garden  and the radio you have and capabilities of any internal / external tuner you have

ft8 you are probably looking as a minimum 20m and 40m bands, with 17m and 30m if possible

for a 40m resonant dipole you need 20m of wire

or you can get something like a multiband vertical like this GPA-80 HF Vertical 80-6M No Gaps No Radials & Perfect SWR With ATU | Moonraker (moonrakeronline.com) but you need an external tuner or a radio like a Xiegu G90 wire a good internal tuner

and feed it with the best coax you can afford as no point losing power and signal in the coax if you can avoid it by spending an extra 5-10 pounds on coax