2007 KØS, Strange Antenna Challenge

Hosted by Erik Weaver nØew and Dwayne Walker wb5plj,

Event Dates: May 26-28, 2007

UPDATED: Dec. 16th, 2007

There were many lightning storms rolling across the Ozarks, so we only operated about 3-hours after getting set up. The antenna was a SLINKY VERTICAL made from one vertical slinky, stretched out to about 40-ft height, and four ground radial slinkies, stretched out to about 20-feet length. In the image below, look for the orange marking tape to indicate several points along each slinky.

 

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Station Set-Up

 

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Slinky Vertical (look for orange marking tape)

 

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Slinky Vertical - Feedpoint

 

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Chicken Wire Delta Loop
101-foot of chicken wire; Feedpoint @ 17-ft. ht. Top est. 40-ft. ht.
Feedline: Twinlead into current balun and coax through window

 

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End of Chicken Wire Delta Loop
The visible rope leads off to the pine tree

 

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Another view of the end of Chicken Wire Delta Loop
that is not burried in the Sycamore

 

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Antenna Rules:

1. KØS stations^* can not use wire antennas;
2. KØS stations^* can not use pipe antennas.
3. Non-KØS stations use whatever antennas they wish!

^* This includes all satellite stations as well as the offical K0S special event station.

    To clarify somewhat by example, if one of us were to bring a large tent, we could fly the entire tent as an antenna, but we could not just pull out its longest metal poles and use them as antenna elements. If there is a basket ball hoop on-site, we can use that, but we couldn't just bring the main supporting pipe and use that as a vertical element.

    You have to use your common sense. We can not identify every thing out there. Just don't use plain wire or plain pipes. Otherwise we'd just be able to go buy long lengths of copper pipe and use them as an antenna (which would work great, of course). What would be the fun in that? That is a normal antenna, not a strange antenna!

    Please remember that mobile stations are not in and of themselves "strange" nor are meritime mobile stations. Now if you are using the transport itself....

    If you look through the previous years events you find a variety of strange antennas, including my painting easel dipole. I worked Alaska through Mexico with this antenna at 100 watts. The tape measure dipole easily worked Europe, also at 100 watts, and most notably Kygyzstan, which is along China's western border. These "antennas" offer just a taste of the possibilities.

    If it is metal, if you can tune it, and if you can load enough power into it to radiate, you can make contacts!

    Tools & supplies we typically find useful for KØS

• Screwdrivers, both straight and phillips
• Hose clamps of various sizes
  • Those which are slotted their entire length are greatly preferred!
• Duck tape (Gaffers tape would be ever better)
• Wire cutters
• Wire strippers
• Fence pliers
• Two or more vice grip pliers
• Two or more c-clamps
• Electrical tape
• Utility knife
• Extra "barrel" connectors for adding coax
• Extra short coax "jumpers" (12- to 18-inches long)
• Dummy load for each antenna port on XCVR
  • Coax "jumper" for each dummy load
• Grounding grid for station (reduces noise)
• Rope, lotsa rope!
• Mason's string
• Short lengths of 2x4
• Orange safety tape (mark hazards)
• Pad of paper and extra pens
• Generator or batteries (if away from ac mains)
• Tennis ball launcher
• Band plan (our favorite is the color coded one from Icom)
• Personal supplies
  • Big hat!
  • Sunscreen lotion
  • DEET anti-bug spray
  • Bug tent is really nice!
  • Bandaids / small first aid kit
  • Extra water

Run Your Own K0S Satellite Station!

    Running your own "Strange Antenna" is a whole lot of fun!

    There are many benefits to participating in, and promoting, The Strange Antenna Challenge. It provides a unique "hook" to help secure media attention, it provides learning opportunities to share you rknowledge of antennas systems and impedance matching techniques limited only by your imagination, is a wonderfully intreiging means of engaging the public, and demonstrates the extreme flexibility of the amateur radio service.

    Here are some of the K0S Satellite Stations that participated this year:

• WØHBK
• KC4ZUA
• KG4DZN
• N5OHL
• KD7UBP