On Nov 2, 2:54 pm, Tim Shoppa wrote:
I am very very proud that I hung a 80-Meter dipole about 100 feet
above my QTH last week.

But I also had a hankering to cover 40 Meters with it too (although I
already had a 40 Meter dipole). So the section in the antenna book
about fan dipoles came to mind.

I looked in the ARRL antenna book, it told me that the seperation of
wires was not all that important. So I sort-of duplicated one of the
sketches in the book, and hung the 40 meter wire from an tiny little
egg insulator on the 80 meter wire.


I've been running those for years. Placing the wires closely together
is a problem as far as coupling, and it almost always effects the
higher of the used bands.
The best way to orient is at right angles, if looking from overhead.
At right angles, there is basically no interaction at all, and the
dipoles act pretty much the same as if separate.
In fact, I've had legs fall down and have no effect on the other
bands. The closer the wires, the more coupling, and the more
tweaking you will have to do to get the higher band tuned.
I've even seen cases where the higher band would tune
a higher frequency by adding more wire. Exactly the opposite
from normal. I don't really like having the wires in the same plane
at all, but if no choice, I would use as large a spreader as possible.
I often have multiple bands.. Here at the house, I presently have
an 80m turnstile, and a 40 dipole on the same feedline.
At my place in OK, I have 160,80,40 and 20m on the same coax
feed. All wires spread as far apart as possible. Looks like a big
spider from overhead.
MK