I love stuff that shouldn't work and does a great job anyhow!
Pat, K9JAUAt 09:16 AM 3/9/2015, you wrote:
>I was unable to respond at the time as I was in Australia and able to
>receive, but not send emails.
>it looks like I'm a day late and a buck short lol.
>That said, I have a full sized Carolina windom up here.  It is the model
>with the coax that hangs down vertically which adds a vertical aspect to the
>radiation patern as well as adds some amount of gain to the antenna.  This
>is indeed the radio works version, and while the antenna does present
>between 2 and 3 to 1 swr on all bands, it seems to work amazingly well for
>the configuration it is in.
>The 88 foot leg is running east west, then it makes a 90 degree turn and the
>44 foot section runs north south.  The vertical portion hangs down a few
>feet and then angles and sweeps down to the feedline coax which is located
>about half way back along the 44 foot section and about 10 feet from the leg
>of the antenna.  So essentially the coax part of the antenna runs paralel
>and below the 44 foot section.
>The ends of the antenna are at around 15 or 20 feet, while the balun where
>the antenna makes the 90 degree turn is at around 30FT.  The antenna works
>very well as a DX antenna.  It is also very close to arial power lines, tv
>cable feeds and telephone feeders.  It passes within feet of the 3 wire
>drops for those services to my house and the house next door.  The noise
>level is not extreme and seems comparable to any other wire antenna
>installation short of one that is located on land far away from any noise
>sources.  For instance, the noise on 10M is usually around S2, same for 15M,
>around S3 on 20, and S7 on 40 and 80 which seems to compare to allot of wire
>antennas I've used on various other stations at different locations.  It
>also works quite nicely on 6M presenting less than 2 to 1 swr and vertually
>no noise.
>So I'm happy with the results.  I have had no issues with water getting into
>either the balun or the coaxial choke at the feed point.  I didn't do
>anything special to seal those units up either, just used vulkanizing rubber
>tape to wrap all coax connecters.
>It's too bad some of you have had problems with quality on these antennas.
>A windom, or carolina windom tends to be a very popular antenna because it
>is multi-banded, actually presents some gain on bands like 20 and 10M, is
>broad banded and typically exhibits a reasonable swr when set up correctly.
>They do recommend it be set up in a straight flat top configuration  at a
>height of at least 20 meters, or 60 feet with the vertical radiator hanging
>straight down away from any metal objects like polls or towers.  However, it
>seems to perform quite well even in a terrible configuration like
>mine...certainly as good or slightly better than a mono band dipole at the
>same height and in the same configuration.  The only nulls I have are
>towards Japan because it is right off the tip of the long leg of the
>antenna, and a little bit to the north and slightly east, but not towards
>europe thankfully.
>
>73
>Colin, V A6BKX
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Fred Adams
>Sent: Monday, March 09, 2015 4:34 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Windom Antenna
>
>Well, last week I asked for any info that you have on the windom antenna.
>I had a windom antenna that I have had for a long time and decided it to
>put it up and I did.  I tried it for several days but the standing wave was
>off the scale and I couldn't bring it down.  I finally decided to replace
>it with my old faithful bazooka antenna for 75 meters and it works great.
>I also tried tuning the bazooka on 40 meters with my LDG AT 1000 tuner and
>it worked pretty well.  I think the balun must be bad on the windom
>antenna.
>
>Anyway, I do not plan to play anymore for now with the windom antenna.The
>bazooka is hard to beat as a single band dipole and maybe some other bands
>with a tuner.