Starting from Scratch: Antenna Basics for Beginners - Three Simple Rules 

I learn more from you than any ham on YT.

I really wish my brain was capable of absorbing even 20% of this mans knowledge….. love hearing him pass on his skills.

Great explanation on vertical and horizontal noise!

When I cut wire, I cut a little long. I have a rule of thumb going between metric and standard. One meter is approximately 3.2 feet or slightly bigger than a yard. I find that even as i have gained experience, a reminder of the basics can help. I really like what you do. I also get a good laugh with some of the differences in the way the British and Americans say things.

Excellent, thanks. Clear and interesting.

Great video as always dude your a natural I've learned so much from watching your videos please keep them coming, also love the music room behind you I've always wanted my own drum set sadly I can't get one as were in a semi detached house.

This is probably your best video i have watched, very nice of you to spread your knowledge about antennas, you allways learn something new when we have mentors like you

Awesome Callum!! Thanks

Thank you so much, for your Frank and normal speaking knowledge and sharing it with us, I have found it to be invaluable.

Hi hi Callum. Fantastic video. Love your straight forward way of explaining things and love your antenna rules. You have inspired me to finally start experimenting with antennas. THANKS!

"Three simple rules", 44-minute video. D: In all seriousness, great watch, well worth the runtime, and we need more long-form content on RU-vid anyway! Keep up the great work! ✊

Thanks Calum, us who do not have the magic black box antenna tuners or an antenna analyser your explanations are great, especially using metric measurements in relation to the bands. I think it all comes down to 10 +- meters for an antenna 1/4 wave 10 meters for each element, then you have the resonant frequencies which I believe are the other bands which the antenna will work on being multiples of 10?????. If using the 80 meter band then each element is twice the length used on the 40 meter band. 10 meter band the elements are 2.5 meters +-. I know that there is math calculations that give you the exact length, but the plus minus length estimate is for tuning...always easier to make the elements a little longer for trimming.

Thanks for sharing. Extremely interestingly love the antenna toppics. Keep it going, we love your shows. Vy 73

Perfect! I live in potato growing country, so I have perfect ground for a vertical.

A proper vertical is just a folded dipole that can’t decide which direction it wants to face. But why doesn’t it need to play by the same rules? Dipoles are hard to use an antenna tuner on, and each pole needs to be the same length. But a vertical doesn’t care how long the radials, neutral/negative, are. You can also tune a 6 meter tall whip to anything between 10 and 80 meters with a good antenna tuner. I keep looking into other antenna concepts, but I keep coming back to verticals for their simplicity and decent performance.

Callum another great presentation from you. I look forward to when you play with the beverage antennas. 73, Mike/K1EG

was about to cut some wire to make an antenna ... ill wait untill i watch this :)

Thanks Callum!!!

Great video! thanks Calum.

Good Video Callum! You do antennas the fun way, skipping the middleman. You take a basic concept and make it work Hands On, rather than Over Engineering them, and still needing Hands On to dial them in anyway. Keep spreading the Good Word. More people need to realize antennas aren't as hard or critical to build as the purists want us to think. Building antennas is another Hands On way to enjoy Ham Radio, especially when you finally work New Zealand on an antenna you built! 73 mike N4ONL EDIT ADD LINK: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OJy-XjGYlGw.html

killer Video man! one of the most useful video ever!! thanks a lot

hi cal i have recently switched to hf vertical , what a difference done loads of a/b tests with dipoles and wspr in the main the vertical comes out on top

Fantastic ❤️

Thanks Cal. Very interesting. 73s

Thanks for more great info and clear explanations. So, I got a 4:1 balun to set up a better LoG in my backyard for SW listening as I mentioned before, and I decided to utilise the full area of said garden, but this means two legs of the antenna are longer than the others (roughly 50ft wide and 30ft deep). Before, I had a far smaller (but less 'lop-sided') one just resting on the lawn to try out the concept after seeing your specific vid on LoGs. I can't help feeling the former was maybe more sensitive - and I initialy set it up without a balun, just having one 18-gauge speaker wire coming from the 2-terminal antenna adapter on the radio and back to its ground. I also tried it with two speaker wires (i.e before splitting the two halves). Is it inadvisable then to have a larger loop with unequal legs, and should I go back to something smaller but more symetrical? Also, even with the balun I can't help feeling the noise level is still quite high, although that could I assume, be proximity to the house and the presence of other noise sources close by in the neighbourhood. Excuse the novel. So much to learn and try to perfect before I even think about pursuing transmitting as well as receiving.😁

Great video. Thankyou

Hay i am new to your chañel and it s3ms ive some catching up to do.. that said . I love your video. Great information about antennas design and propagation. I do truly look forward to more. I am not yet a ham . I am a 11meter baby. No haters. I also enjoy my gmrs radios . As i study for the ham test i am amazed at the multitude of available radios and antennas and how things have changed from the 70s to now . I have also found digital to be a bit perplexing, subject maybe for another day. I woder tho do you have any videos on 11 meter antennas or would you consider doin a fucus on 11 meters and another on 2meter and 70cm i feel at 59 i am late in the game to be tryin to learn how to build antennas . I was in the army and raising 7 children i was always to busy for the radio hobby . And now i have the time , and retired now far less income . Rambling on now. Anyway 73s great video. I am 10 from the florida georgia line . In georgia.

Callum, from S.E.Tennessee - your plain speaking is greatly appreciated. You have given me the encouragement to go out and experiment on my small holding. In the end, though, I really just want my signal to “get out there” as far and strong and clear as possible. Also interesting - the idea of a receive (only) antenna. Does that imply separate antennas for receive and transmit? Perhaps a silly query, if so, please excuse a newbie’s ignorance. Cheers - KQ4IXD

Callum, you mentioned linear loading & coiling in this presentation. Well I was thinking about a different type of space constraint - I can basically squeeze in a hundred of metres or so of wire to one direction (or two, if it's bidirectional), but my backyard room doesn't allow other directions I'm particularly interested in. Like, I could point it at UK or US to one side or India/Middle East to the other from Poland but I'd rather get Japan & Korea out of that wire antenna. Can adding a bit of wire perpendicularly at the far end help? I imagine the pattern should skew towards the new far end, but how much? And will it work for a longwire as well as a beverage? Or am I risking spurious leaves off-the-sides? 73, Arnie

so I get that different wire carries different impedances , question is what wire is recommended for the radiating wires of a dipole? is there a particular gauge which is best suited?

When I lived in the city... I had a nice tall 80 ft tree... I ran my coax to the tree and I attached three aerials one was cut for 160 another for $80 and another for 40 m I had quite a few radials that were just stapled to the ground with lawn staples and I just use galvanized steel fence wire... I also connected to the fence of the property as well as the water line and my two car steel garage The result wasn't antenna that worked all the way from 160 up to 6 m... For that matter it even presented a usable match it two meters It was an extremely loud talker on 160 through 40 Although it wasn't very good at listening on 160 due to all the noise it would pick up I still made quite a few contacts using this antenna... And I referred to it as a fan vertical Obviously the 160 and 80 aerials were more of an inverted L

What would happen if you fold the dipole one or two more times, regarding that linear loading antenna, just a thought

No.1 Space?

I’m trying to remember (it’s been almost 50 years since I earned my degree in engineering) why don’t you use a ferrite core for a loading coil? Is it because it would saturate at HF frequencies? I am asking since it would make a much more compact coil. *73 de AF6AS in **_“DM13”_** land*

I'm a big n00b. If I lay a 200m telephone wire right on the ground will it work decently well or is it really important to raise it off the ground?

Thanks!

But beam width of the beverage is 10-12 deg at best and I believe ON4UN said a shorter length beverage even narrower. Please correct me if I’m wrong I’m still reading the chapter 😊

This guy is the bomb. !!!❤❤❤

i saw plan for 8 inch square box i used copper tape around it for 2m u think it will work

Thankds sir Calum for this very informative video which has given me some ideas, specifically a small LoG RX antenna to combat local QRM from LED streetlights and neighbors' fairy lights. I'm still not licensed yet (awaiting my countries' communications authority to schedule an exam in my region) but I've built an experimental vertical traveling-wave antenna (it needs a good ATU to TX) out of 7.3 meters of twinlead appliance cord with 1.5 meters removed from one side at the top. a 4:1 transformer, and a few counterpoises.I've been able to RX very well and pick up stations on FT8 (on various bands) from all over the globe. It's a sort of Rybakov/OCF 43 foot vertical hybrid or something. You might have fun experimenting with this. 73 de Jay PK10.

Great info

Hello sir, I have 5 element Long john 1 sided beam 17' boom that I cant figure out, I am trying to use it for 11 meters do you have any ideas or paperwork you could share with me? Thanks.

Cool video!

When wrapping torroids(?) for baluns/ununs, can acetone be used instead scraping or sanding the coating off the ends of magnetic wire?

And, just to push my luck, what do you think would happen if you moved the 'cap hat' from the top of the antenna to half-way down the antenna - i.e. - from the top of a 1/4 wave vertical to half-way down the vertical? Would this 'increase' or 'decrease' the lowering of the radiation angle, and therefore lessen or enhance the DX range? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.

Wow. Distilled knowledge - in a 'nutshell'. 🙂 Can I ask, what would you think the effect of adding a 'capacitance hat' to a vertical antenna in the hopes of increasing the DX range of the transmissions? Since the 'cap hat' tends to electronically 'lengthen' the antenna, and thus making a 1/4 wave look more like a 1/2 wave antenna, and since 1/2 wave antennas have a lower angle of radiation, would the 'cap hat' tend to 'push down', or lower the angle, more than a plain 1/4 wave antenna, and therefore have more radiated power at 5 degrees? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

3rd lol good day to all

Mind impedance and voltage/current behaviors for optimal EMF performance. 'Resonance', proper match to transmitter suggests 50 ohms +/- impedance at the feedpoint. So a 7.2 MHz antenna is not 50 ohms @ 15 meters... it's a non-50-ohm harmonic relationship at 21.6 MHz - outside the amateur spectrum.

very interesting video!! what do you think about a rhombic antenna?

If twice as many radials work at half the length then why wont multiple beverage antenna lines at shorter lengths spaced 10 degrees apart work as well?

G'day to you Calum, just a thought, what do you reckon I use the house gutter as an antenna? My problem is that they are colourbond I'd have to scratch the "paint" to secure the wire from the radio. Talking about QRN, I was tuning into shortwave the other day and our power went out, boy was I surprised NO QRN till the power went back on. I have solar panels and inverter, I think they are my enemy.. Great videos mate.. HooRoo from VK land.

I only have an acre for my antenna, however there is 200 acres of state forestry up to my property. What would my chances be to run a long wire out into the forestry woods? I'm thinking a drone could deliver the wire along the top of the tree's for as far as my pocket can afford. I imagine even a large expensive drone could still only handle so much wire. any thoughts on how long i could go?

Yep 3rd harmonics but there is a,signal drop

Even vy interesting video and clear explanation. Thanks Cal ! 73,Mauri Iz2mgn

I would add making sure they are UK weatherproof, using stainless steel where possible. Also, the radial system needs to be weather resistant, when it degrades makes the SWR go higher.

CAL….. I’m getting all excited……. Wa Waiting for my 11 m …, 🇦🇺🥃😎

First! 😂

😍

Cullam you still not answered my two questions what are you doing now tell ne

Rule 4. Don't get your cable nicked. Be careful with strippers.

What if churches, places of worship.. where antennas?

Actually, the First Rule of Wire Antennas is: Never put a wire antenna up in good weather, it will fall down. 73 OM

very good vidio, but you chat and rush very quick, it says for beginners, please slow down ,

3rd lol

You need some bananas on top of your doughnut

Second!

Shit like this is why no one wanst to get into ham, 3 simple things, spends almost an hour to say 3 sentences.

another great subject enjoyed every moment of it de MI0TLG William

thank you once again Callum for doing these videos, I real enjoy learning from you, your such a good inspiration to learn more.

Hello Cullum from Dan Peoples in McArthur ohio. Dan and I are watching you now. Dan has his ham lisence blessingz

my 3 , luck , luck and foremost LUCK.

41:27, will need this later

Your doggy agrees....

that was interesting for sure... 👍👍👍

there are no rules .

Callum, could you do a video on a vertical dipole vs a vertical, for say 10m I an interested in the modeling. I actually put a vertical dipole on the side of my house for 10m. It was completely above the roof, and the performance was unbelievable It was cheap and cheerful and the feedpoint came out at 90 degrees on a piece of cane.I was getting contacted by Aruba every morning on low power.

FT902 had the preamp on by default and there is no need for a preamp on unless you are in the middle of nowhere and you are working on the higher bands.

Great stuff, Callum! Thanks! Ben N4UTX

73 from germany

Three rules, 1. Adjustable 2. Adjustable 3. Adjustable

Exceptional

Thanks again Cal, you’ve taught me why I have such a narrow usable swr range on the 80M portion of my efhw. The coil that shortens it (for 80M)! I might have to eliminate it and put an extra 20 meters of wire up. Might have to move my feed end back a bit to fit it all in my block. 73

Probably a stupid question, at 38:11 When you are drawing the coil CCW {referencing the feed-point side of the coil} should the other side be the same CCW or CW, or it doesn't matter? 🤔

Explain why you would not use a 49:1 Unun on your DXC…. I was told it needs one…. Told Ihem Idon’t have one on mine. And it work’s awesome!

What the RF imports could do on one VFO rigs is to have 2 ant ports and have an internal TR switch!

13:25 Dog says, "crazy human is talking to himself again"

A really good vid Cal. A question if you don't mind. How would a loop of wire vice radials work on your wonders of magic? Example, a back yard of 15m x 10m loop, on the ground. I know, buy one and try it out and let you have the results... 🤣🤣 73, Gary

Great tutorial! very helpful!

Excellent Video. I shared this with a few of my HAM friends who like to build antennas. Very good info for beginner antenna building. Thanks for sharing. de W5KAL

I am learning more about RF black magic.🪄 Thanks again Callum.👍🤠