G5RV setup

[JulianParticipant]

I just bought a G5RV and a Spiderbeam fibreglass pole 12mt. about the feed ladder line at center point how do you have it tied to the pole? Is it left hanging downward loose? Does it have to have a space between pole and feed ladder line until the ground? Or can it be tied together with the pole with plastic ties? Thank you

[M0PWXParticipant]

GE Julian

i don’t use ladder line but from what i have read it should be kept off the ground, and not attached to metal towers as where it is unshielded it is affected by metal and ground

so should be ok on a fibre glass pole as its not conductive, some say the lightly put a couple of turns round a fibreglass pole to stop it flapping around

the other thing is ladder line is normally a multiple of a 1/2 wavelength from what i have read, but if you have a complete kit including the ladder line it should be the right length

most important thing is to check with an SWR Meter or VNA to tune it once in place, once in tuned use a mode like WSPR or FT8 where you get a db figure from the receiving station to get an idea of how well the Antenna is performing then try moving the ladder line to see if things improve or not

one thing you will find is if you put WSPR into bandhop mode (you will need CAT control of your radio) you will see how the bands change between day and night, so any changes you make and use WSPR (or any other mode) to get a better idea of if a change toy your setup has a positive or negative effect try and compare results for similar conditions / time of day

finally pay attention to the direction of your antenna, dipoles radiate sideways so the best option if you can is have it run North/South so the best signals are east / west so east will be EU / Asia / Australia and west is US / south america

[JulianParticipant]

It is a full size Dipolo Sigma G5RV complete kit, all understood just waiting for the weather to settle down for installing it.
the position can only be North to South.
For the moment I am currently gathering all the equipment I will need, haven’t decided about the radio maybe Yaesu FTDX 101 ?
many thanks for the explanation very clear.
Soon
73s

[JulianParticipant]

73s

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by Julian.

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