Posted: 6/3/2026 3:28:04 PM EDT
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We unexpectedly ended up in a situation where we were able to move to a place on a 7 acre trapezoid shaped plot of land. I have a 250 roll of silicone coated copper wire, some nylon pulleys, a few hundred feet of dacron rope and a 4:1 balun. My thought was to try an 80 meter delta loop. The top half of the structure is the garage where the radio stuff is. I was thinking of running coax out the soffit out on a line a ways from the metal roof to support the 4:1 balun then have the triangle loop go out from there to the tree line behind. That would make the antenna approximately 50-60 feet high on the wide side along the tree line then it would slope down to around 20-30 feet to the balun near the house. Does this sound feasible or are there any other suggestions for a better use of the room available? Here is a screenshot of the plot with the proposed antenna in yellow. Attached File |
"My battery is low and it's getting dark."
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Tag for interest!I'vI've always wanted to try a Skyloop. I was going to put up 4, 30' flag poles with pullys to pull up the loop. I bought one of the flagpoles and could never afford the other three or the rest of the needed stuff. |
LARUEMINATI
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
NRA Endowment Life Member
Originally Posted By Boom_Stick:
""AKs are for villagers you have to tell not to shit in their water supply.""
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Originally Posted By smullen: Tag for interest!I'vI've always wanted to try a Skyloop. I was going to put up 4, 30' flag poles with pullys to pull up the loop. I bought one of the flagpoles and could never afford the other three or the rest of the needed stuff. I never had the room before now. My main hinderance at this point is getting the rope over the trees and high enough. I got an arborer's slingshot pole thing but man is that difficult to pull back far enough. The thing is huge but I can only seem to get it about 5 to 10 feet from the top of the highest trees. I have a DJI Phantom 3 drone with a drop mechanism. I'm going to try to pull up some fishing line with a sinker over the trees next to pull the dacron cord. The problem I had in the past at the other house was the line filtering down through the top of the tree and getting tangled up in lower branches resulting in it not coming straight out from the highest point. |
"My battery is low and it's getting dark."
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I own an AirBoss launcher. AIRBOSS You are welcome to borrow it, if we're close. I'm near Austin, TX. 73, John KF5ZMD |
Tag for ideas. Closing on 20 acres soon...will be nice to have antenna room again. Might even try 630m or 2200m.  ETA: I always used a rifle grenade to launch lines in the trees. Worked perfectly. Another option is one of those launchable grenade adapters, but instead of a grenade, use a tennis ball. Extra weight helps it punch through the branches and leaves. |
| OP, maybe you can find an Arborist who climbs trees, or someone to come in with a cherry picker. I suspended my OCFD in 3 places with a necklace made of rope around each tree trunk, and a pulley on each necklace. A long rope attached to the antenna runs through each pulley and gets tied off on a boat dock cleat screwed into the tree trunk at about waist height. This allows me to raise and lower the antenna, which I like. This would add a little expense, but might be worth it to you. |
Don't confuse where I live with where I'm from.
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80/75 is going to be noisy except in the winter. You'll definitely need an amp unless you're operating CW or digital. A starter could be a 40/20 fan dipole, the 40 meter elements will take power on 15. A pair of 80 or 75 meter elements could be added, the band's too wide for a good match all the way across it. An end-fed half-wave is another option. They can be a bit tricky to tune, though. ETA: I had two 35' (above ground) power poles install about 10 years ago. IIRC, it was about $1500, but that included lightning protection, heavy gauge wire sticking up on top and run into a spiral on the bottom of the pole. An inverted Vee is an option, it uses one pole. My antenna was a flat-top dipole supported in the center. One end was on the other pole and the other in a tree. The tree died so the antenna became half flat top and half inverted vee. Change in the SWR was negligible and I could not tell any difference in performance. I can still work DX running 5 Watts CW into it. The skinny on the Inverted Vee: LINK Note the horizontal plane radiation graphs. |
"...Capitalism...shares its blessings unequally; ...Socialism...shares its miseries equally."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
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Originally Posted By Jupiter7200: ...Before they put up each pole screw in a big eyebolt, thread your rope through. OK, boys, let 'er rip. Get marine-grade stainless steel sheaves to put on those eyebolts, and use the size rope the sheave is designed for. They are expensive, but a lot cheaper than having the installer come back out to replace the rope. Also, have the installer cut off any splinters projecting from the pole. They WILL snag your rope. BTDT. |
"...Capitalism...shares its blessings unequally; ...Socialism...shares its miseries equally."
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
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All I did was hit the easy button and throw up an EFHW for 80m, it's only 25' AGL, and it works well on 7 bands, and 11m. Just last night was talking to Belgium, Poland, and Italy on 20m. I think with all the space you've got, you could try a Beverage antenna for receive. |
I am not sure silicone wire is the best choice for a loop antenna. I you live in an area of high winds or ice/snow in the winter it might not be strong enough to stay up. 
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“Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways, men can be immortal. “ - Ernest Hemingway
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Originally Posted By lorazepam: All my antennas are made with silicone wire. The DX commander, and a random wire as well as an efhw. They have survived multiple winters, and a severe storm today with 70mph winds. |
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Originally Posted By TVille: The silicone wire is fine for shorter runs, typical 1/2 wavelength antennas. However, for longer runs, where you try to pull sag out, it may break. Not because of the silicone, but because of the 18 gauge or so copper wire. The really strong stuff is steel, copper coated steel or has kevlar in it, like the DXCommander DX50 wire. That's what I was thinking about. I've used 14 gauge THHN wire and haven't had any issues. |
“Every man has two deaths, when he is buried in the ground and the last time someone says his name. In some ways, men can be immortal. “ - Ernest Hemingway
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Originally Posted By mancow: We unexpectedly ended up in a situation where we were able to move to a place on a 7 acre trapezoid shaped plot of land. I have a 250 roll of silicone coated copper wire, some nylon pulleys, a few hundred feet of dacron rope and a 4:1 balun. My thought was to try an 80 meter delta loop. The top half of the structure is the garage where the radio stuff is. I was thinking of running coax out the soffit out on a line a ways from the metal roof to support the 4:1 balun then have the triangle loop go out from there to the tree line behind. That would make the antenna approximately 50-60 feet high on the wide side along the tree line then it would slope down to around 20-30 feet to the balun near the house. Does this sound feasible or are there any other suggestions for a better use of the room available? Here is a screenshot of the plot with the proposed antenna in yellow. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/168134/delta_jpg-3772837.JPG Watch out for feed line loss due to VSWR, depending on the impedance of your loop you might have a better signal feeding it with open wire line and a balanced "tuner" in the shack. I like big loops, I cannot lie  Rege |
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Originally Posted By mojohn: I own an AirBoss launcher. AIRBOSS You are welcome to borrow it, if we're close. I'm near Austin, TX. 73, John KF5ZMD That's cool. Thank you. |
"My battery is low and it's getting dark."
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Thanks for all the replies. Here's what I've done so far... I used my drone to pull dacron lines over the trees. As luck has it my payload drop mechanism died right before so I just pulled it extra high and slowly let it drop to the ground. I used nylon pulleys at the ends and fed the silicone wire through them. It all goes back to an LDG 4:1 balun mounted to a plastic electrical box plate with the wire through holes in it as strain relief to the balun. That is tied off a few feet from the edge of the house/garage and only about 20 feet high. The other two ends are probably 30-40 feet high. It's fed with about 30 feet of LMR 400 because that's a chunk I had left over. It ended up being pretty much exactly like my initial drawing. It works amazingly well. Resonance points are pretty much spot on each band with 80 being a tad low. I clean it up with the 7300's tuner. Noise is non existent. I mean nothing at all. It's a zero S meter. Having buried utilities and the main power feeds a long way from the house helps I'm sure. Also, the house is all metal externally. I'm not sure if that helps mitigate junk radiated from appliances and stuff. Recently 10 and 6 have been busy and it even worked well up through both those with me making numerous 6 meter SSB contacts on it. As others mentioned the wire isn't super strong but it's also not terrible. It is under a fair bit of tension and has held up through a few storms. I'm extremely happy with it so far and it's nearly impossible to see if you aren't looking for it. The next project is to clamp my telescopic mast to the metal carport outbuilding and put the IMAX2000 10 meter vertical on it. It would be a fair run out to it from the shack but at 10 meters the loss should be acceptable. I was thinking of maybe even using RG6 and dealing with the mismatch in trade of loss. |
"My battery is low and it's getting dark."
| 80m horizontal delta loops are fantastic antennas. You do have the trade off of either 75m or good SWR on 20m and up. I have mine tuned to about 3.8MHz and it's usable on the upper bands, but the dips are outside of the band. The alternative is to tune 80m to about 3.6MHz then 20, 15 and 10m line up nicely. 40m seems to work either way. |