2006 KØS, Kurt N. Sterba Strange Antenna Challenge

Hosted by Erik Weaver nØew and Dwayne Walker wb5plj,

Memorial Weekend, May 27-29, 2006

    This is a great idea! One of the nice aspects of the tomatoe cages is they are fairly stiff wire, so they can be more easily stood upright than, say, chicken wire. This is a great looking vertical antenna! I think you'll enjoy Jim's pics below...
- Erik n0ew

    I had a great time doing this event even though I did not make many contacts nor did I ever hear any of the other K0S stations. I have attached my report. I will send pictures in the next email.

    This must be the world's tallest Tomato Cage.

    I came across the announcement for the K0S Strange Antenna Challenge so I thought this might be fun and interesting. I like to grow tomatoes in my backyard garden. This year I found some great garden fence material to make some tomatoe cages. Some of my tomatoes really like to grow tall so I must have some way to support them. I made a 12" diameter round cage with this fence material. It has a 2" by 3" rectangular galvanized mesh. I looked at the ones I had already made in the garden standing four feet tall, and then I got an idea for a vertical antenna. If I stacked four of the cages, I would have a sixteen-foot vertical antenna. In front of my garage is a carport covered with a rusty tin roof. I mounted the antenna in the center of the carport roof using a piece of plywood for the insulator. I ran coax to the base of the tomatoe cage mesh. The ground braid of the coax went to a screw that I put into the rusty tin roof. My antenna analyzer showed that the antenna was resonant just above the 20 meter band. My Dentron Super Tuner Plus had no problem tuning this antenna on 20 meters. I did not make very many contacts but the reports I got were excellent. I did not hear any other K0S strange antenna stations but I did make a few contacts on 20, 40, and even 10 meters. It certainly was fun making a strange antenna out of something other than wire or normal antenna materials.

      Jim Richardson
      N5OHL

Oh, that grin says it all!

So, just how many of these things are there!?

Feed point. Note the coax coil choke to help keep all the RF in the antenna, and off the feed line.

Oh ya! This qualifies as a strange antenna! Heheheh, he hasn't told us what his neighbors thought...
I wonder if any tomatoe growers saw this! Bet they ran out to buy a bunch of fertilizer!