As of January 2026, we have several antenna setups that are in various stages of operation or repair on our site. Here’s an overview.
The start of the Giga Loop
A full-wave 630m loop at varying heights ranging from 10 to 100ft off the ground. In practice, the feedpoint impedance is way off from the simulations, but that’s okay. As of Spring 2025, it is partially dismantled for construction work on the property, but even with half the wire coiled up, it still picks up stations from across the world.
It starts off here and circles a part of the property:
Perhaps because of the capacitive loading and its proximity to ground, it resonates much lower than I anticipated/simulated, and the feedpoint impedance is miles off from where it should be.
We use the learnings from this experiment to build our Giga Loop, which will cover over 15 acres.
A fan diapole
This antenna hung about 75 feet over a canyon on our property. The feedline was balanced at the 600-ohm line. This antenna is currently down, mostly because the feedline was not practical due to the distance to the shack — it constantly got tangled up. I will need to either build a remote tuner or maybe find a source of 450-ohm ladder line at a reasonable price, as I might need about a quarter mile.
I love the simplicity of a fan dipole, also strung over the canyon. This is fed by a current balun and RG-6 Cable TV coax at 75 ohms, because it is cheap for long runs and has no significant loss at HF for resonant antenna use.
Vertical Antennas
I’m not exactly a “vertical enthusiast” (they’re noisy), but this contraption is quite useful for transmitting. It has four radiating elements and eight elevated radials. Fed with one 75-ohms coax for all 6 bands.
Another dual bander: vertical for 80, inverted L for 160. All wire. Strung over a canyon with six radials going east-west and the “L” going north-south. The radiation pattern is almost omnidirectional.
Sometimes, temporary antennas stay up a little longer than planned. Almost a year ago, I planted a few 2x4s into the ground as a makeshift “mast” to get something in the air for 6m, 2m, 20m, and 40m. All are fed with RG-6, as I had a couple of 500ft spools lying around.
The 2-meter antenna is a monopole with radials bent to match the 75-ohm impedance of the cable. The physical insulator is a spark plug. The 6-meter antenna on the right is a vertical dipole. No balun was used, even though it is a balanced antenna. It was supposed to be up for a day, and I was out of balun materials.
These two inverted Vs share a 4×2 “mast” (pole? stick? contraption? eyesore!) Both coaxials are RG-6. Balun is 1:1.
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