Cylinder dipole at 21 MHz

Monster Cylinder Dipole
Click on the pictures to enlarge

Monster Cylinder Dipole
 After the experiment with the Red Bull antenna, I built a second Cylinder Dipole with two Monster energy drink cans of 500 ml. The cans together with the coil resonate at 16 MHz.
The Monster Cylinder Dipole has a wingspan of 15" or 35 cm. Hi.

The 300 ohm ribbon is connected to the point at the top of the coil (in the picture) with the red and yellow alligator clips (See the white arrow in the top of the picture). The antenna is hanging from the ribbon. I can adjust the SWR 1:1 with my symmetrical tuner.


Cylinder dipole

PA1B Cylinder Dipole.  The current at the surface of the cylinder generates the field.

Closed Monster Cans  
In this antenna I use the complete can, without removing the top and the bottom of the can, to keep the construction simple and the cylinders strong. Closed cylinders are much stronger than open cylinders.

Monster cans
Although it is not easy to compare two antenna's, that were used in two different contests a week apart, the cylinder dipole with the 500 ml Monster cans is probably better than the Red Bull antenna.
In general the cylinder dipoles are very quite on receive, because of the small length of the antenna.

On the air
In the H.M. King of Spain contest I made QSO's on 7 MHz, 14 MHz and 21 MHz.
Most QSO's were made on 21 MHz with a power of 3.6 W to 360 mW all over Europe.
This Monster cylinder dipole with two 500 ml cans works better on 21 MHz than on 14 MHz.
The SWR of the antenna is adjusted with the symmetrical tuner.
On 7 MHz it was very difficult to make a QSO. The QSO's on 7 MHz were made over a short distance. NVIS. The low relative heigh at 7 MHz reduces the signal.

The table below shows the DXCC countries per band and per power category.

Across the Atlantic
I very much enjoyed the QSO with N1KWF in New Hampshire over a distance of 3490 Miles, with a power of 3.6 Watts.

Please notice that that the Monster cylinder dipole with 500 ml cans:
 * has a length of 15" (38 cm)
 * is placed in the shack,
 * at a height of 4 meter above the ground.

Click on the table below, to read the hand written notes.
In this way, I record the power that I use in each QSO, on paper .
The QSO data is logged in SD of EI5DI.

 

List of QSO's with the Monster cylinder dipolePA1B

The QSO's in red are more than 1000 Miles per Watt QSO's.

 

DXCC's per band and per power category PA1B