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    DIY Carolina Windom

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    stevassy
    The document describes how to build a DIY Carolina Windom antenna for multi-band operation. A Carolina Windom is a type of off-center fed dipole antenna that uses part of the feedline as a vertical radiator. It requires a 4:1 voltage balun to match the legs and a separate 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feedline. The author provides instructions on cutting the wire, attaching baluns, and testing the homemade antenna, which was able to make contacts on multiple HF bands with low SWR during a field operation test.

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    DIY Carolina Windom

    Uploaded by

    stevassy
    261 views3 pages
    The document describes how to build a DIY Carolina Windom antenna for multi-band operation. A Carolina Windom is a type of off-center fed dipole antenna that uses part of the feedline as a vertical radiator. It requires a 4:1 voltage balun to match the legs and a separate 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feedline. The author provides instructions on cutting the wire, attaching baluns, and testing the homemade antenna, which was able to make contacts on multiple HF bands with low SWR during a field operation test.

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    Carolina windom explanarion

    Original Title

    DIY_Carolina_Windom

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    The document describes how to build a DIY Carolina Windom antenna for multi-band operation. A Carolina Windom is a type of off-center fed dipole antenna that uses part of the feedline as a vertical radiator. It requires a 4:1 voltage balun to match the legs and a separate 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feedline. The author provides instructions on cutting the wire, attaching baluns, and testing the homemade antenna, which was able to make contacts on multiple HF bands with low SWR during a field operation test.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    261 views3 pages

    DIY Carolina Windom

    Uploaded by

    stevassy
    The document describes how to build a DIY Carolina Windom antenna for multi-band operation. A Carolina Windom is a type of off-center fed dipole antenna that uses part of the feedline as a vertical radiator. It requires a 4:1 voltage balun to match the legs and a separate 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feedline. The author provides instructions on cutting the wire, attaching baluns, and testing the homemade antenna, which was able to make contacts on multiple HF bands with low SWR during a field operation test.

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    DIY CAROLINA WINDOM

    I have wanted to build a multi-band wire antenna for some time now and this past

    Field Day I had an opportunity to use a very good one. The Carolina Windom is

    essentially an off-center fed dipole (OCFD) that uses a portion of its feed line as a

    vertical radiator. I used one to make about a 100 PSK31 contacts on 20, 40, and 80

    meters during Field Day.

    The key to an OCFD's operation is the fact that there is a point on the antenna

    where the input impedance is approximately 200 Ohms at multiple frequencies.

    When fed with a 4:1 balun this provides a reasonable match to the standard 50

    Ohm load that my coaxial cable and radio like to see. Even if the antenna doesn't

    provide a perfect 1:1 SWR over all bands, it keeps it low enough that a simple

    antenna tuner can compensate for any mismatch. The problem with OCFDs is that

    since the two legs of the antenna are of different lengths, the currents in each leg

    are out of phase.


    This means that in order to avoid feed line radiation, you should use a 4:1 current

    balun to compensate for this current imbalance. These are not readily available for

    sale, but can be constructed from kits. Here's a great article which describes how to

    wind your own current balun using this kit from Amidon. You can also buy an

    equivalent balun from DX Engineering.

    The Carolina Windom, however, wants the feed line to radiate (at least a portion of

    it) in order to gain the vertical radiation and some performance. To achieve this the

    Windom uses a 4:1 voltage balun, which matches the antenna's leg voltages and

    then uses a separate 1:1 choke balun to isolate the feed line from the vertical

    radiator. Both of these baluns are readily available and relatively inexpensive.

    The first step in constructing my Carolina Windom was to cut the antenna wire to

    length for an 80 meter version. I used these measurements from Radioworks, who

    sell pre-assembled Windoms, but other sites also show measurements and formulas

    for cutting a Windom for any band. My Windom has the same 133ft overall length

    of a traditional dipole, but is divided into 50ft and 83ft legs instead of equal

    lengths. Since this antenna will be used for temporary setups such as Field Day and

    the PA QSO Party, I didn't make it out of heavy duty wire, instead I used insulated

    #14 stranded copper wire. This wire is a good compromise between strength and

    weight.
    Construction of the Windom is very straightforward; simply solder one end of each

    wire to opposite sides of the 4:1 balun and attach insulators to the other ends. For

    the 4:1 voltage balun I used the W2AU 4:1 and for the 1:1 choke balun I used

    theW2DU inline-HF, both of which are available from Unadilla. These are well

    constructed commercial baluns that work well for these purposes. In the picture I

    do not have the choke balun connected since I did not have it at the time, so in its

    place I created a poor man's choke balun by coiling about 10 turns of my RG-58

    feed line.

    In order to test the antenna I set up my new fiberglass mast to about 25 feet with the

    Windom on top. While this isn't an ideal height, it was fine for a test. I connected the feed

    line to my radio and tested the SWR. I was able to get a match using my Icom IC-703's

    internal tuner on all of the HF bands. Since the 703's internal tuner can only deal with

    SWRs of less than 3:1, this means the antenna is performing as expected, providing a

    decent match to the radio on all the HF bands. For a further test I tuned around the 20

    meter band. Hearing a special event station in Maine, I gave him a call and he came right

    back to me. Not a bad first test, getting into Maine with 10 watts. This is exactly what I

    was hoping for, a solid performing multi-band antenna that I can use for temporary

    operations. Wire antennas are very simple and cheap to build, and this one is a great

    project for any type of station.

    Source: http://www.highonsolder.com/blog/2009/7/7/diy-carolina-windom.html

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