What?!? Another Hole? Say it isn't so . . . .

Got your attention? 

I know that you have helped me dig a hole, and more than once (well, many times) you've helped me swing down my antenna er. Flag Pole, so I could tune the traps er, adjust the flag hoist rope

Anyway, despite my best efforts, and your amazing help not to mention patience, I just can't get it tuned right across all of the useful Ham bands that I want to work. I can get 20 meters good only to lose 15 and 40 meters. I get 40, and lose 30. Nature of the beast with a multi-band trap antenna.

In addition, the PVC outer pole just likes to sway in the wind 
a bit more lot more than we're comfortable with. 

So, ladies and gentlemen, what is the solution? Give up Ham Radio? (That'd be NO). But hey, how about a new

Flagpole!

What's that? Didn't I just say that the flagpole has issues that don't seem to want to resolve? Indeed, I did say that. Confused? Don't be.

I am switching to a all metal (well, mostly) flagpole where the pole itself is actually the antenna! To be precise, it's an off center feed (OCF) dipole. It radiates both polarities of the sine wave. 

As it's a DIpole and not a MonoPole like I have now, I won't need to run wires all over the grounds for 'radials'. That alone may earn me some points with my darling garden Czar.

To make it work across the wide range of frequencies, there are details, but to make it simple, the flagpole is insulated from the ground, by being set in a PVC collar that is set in crushed rocks or cement in a hole! 

At the base of the flagpole, there is an electronics box called an Auto Tuner that takes the signal from the radio, and with some electronic magic ;

(I can explain in detail if you ask), (Hint, it has a variable capacitor and Inductor) 

This circuit and the associated electronics makes the flagpole resonate at whatever frequency the radio is sending to it. 

So instead of a set of traps that allow a few bands to be worked (if I could get the entire system tuned) the whole high frequency set of Ham bands can be used with this flagpole. Cool huh?

So, who wants to be a volunteer to help dig a hole, perhaps shovel some rocks and/or cement, and be an eagle eye on a post level? 

Once again, I'll arrange to rent a powered post hole digger. Most likely more power and a wider auger as we know that we can't dig as deep as we'd like. (Darn Glaciers). 

Yeah, I'd be looking for help to dig another hole. Can't avoid it. 

After the insulating PVC sets (if I use cement), a couple of us will just need to lift up the flagpole, (It's just 20 feet high) and nicely drop slide it into the waiting PVC collar. Piece of cake.

Thanks for reading!

Dad