Finding Inexpensive Antenna Components
The places to go for components to make antennas have seriously dropped in number over the past 20+ years, making an antenna end up being a compromise. This is because, in many cases, due to the rising cost of some important things like insulators for the antenna ends on a wire antenna, standoff insulators to hold the antenna off of the side of the house, or other things it may touch. There was a time you could find egg insulators made of genuine ceramic material, polished to a high sheen in just about every electronics parts store. Great big ceramic feed-through insulators ranging from nearly a foot tall to glass ones that looked like a green goose egg could be purchased for a couple of dollars. Antenna wire was easy to find. Number 14 stranded to number 6 hard-drawn solid copper wire could be found with ease, just by asking. If it wasn’t in stock, it could be ordered, be in your hot little hands in a few weeks, ready to be converted from mere wire to the most wonderful antenna ever created.
But, those days are probably gone forever. True, there are several companies that specialize in antenna wire and a lot of the stuff we need to build our dream antenna. But, usually it has to be ordered and takes time to get to you, which can be frustrating if you need to get an antenna up for a special event. Anyway, it does not matter what the reason. Obtaining parts can be a very difficult thing to deal with sometimes.
However, there is still hope for the antenna-challenged person, so read on. Finding alternatives for insulators can be solved by a quick trip to a farm & ranch store, or feed store that sells electric fence chargers and the necessary items to build fences. This will reward you with antenna insulators and standoff insulators, even wire if you need a bunch of it. The wire I found locally was in several sizes and you could either get aluminum or galvanized in two wire sizes in rolls up to nearly a half mile for what I thought was a reasonable price. To make things even more interesting, a bag of 25 insulators was about $3.00 and there were all sorts of different standoff insulators of more than adequate dimensions that could handle much more power than we are allowed run on the ham bands. I am not sure how all the different wires would do as antenna wires, but I found the aluminum wire could be bent easily as it was rather soft. My original need for the wire not for an antenna but to charge up a fence to keep a dog from getting out and just happened to find these were good materials for antennas. But, when I am out searching for house-type projects, I keep the eyes peeled for ham use.
Several times I needed components for a beam, but when I went looking for the correct aluminum tubing, I found I could use copper tubing which cost less per length than the aluminum. And better yet, the copper could be soldered easily. The only thing to keep in mind is once you make a copper beam, it needs to be polished until it looks like gold, then painted to keep it from corroding. The resulting copper oxide has a much higher resistance than clean copper and will induce losses because of to this into your antenna system. No one wants that.
Another thing I have seen was the use of old house wiring for an antenna. This came out of a house that was being demolished for the wood. One of the local hams asked if he could have the wiring for free and got it. The resulting antenna was rather odd looking as it had several splices in it and was rather heavy, but it worked very well. Wire is rather expensive now, so wherever you can get it cheap, take advantage of it. Another source of wire is a GI surplus store. Look for the rolls of communications wire. Commo wire for field telephones will make good antenna wire because it is a mixture of steel and copper wires and very strong.
If you haunt such places, look for an A/T 292 antenna which consists of a package of aluminum tubing, nylon guy wires, base, and carrying bag. It comes complete with a sloping ground plane antenna that can be set up for 15 to 6 meters, depending on the number of sections in the antenna planned. The total height is 40 ft. if my memory serves me right. I put them up many times when I was in the Army and they are very good for Field Day and portable operations. Two or three will enable you to put up a dipole complete with a mast to hold up the coax and the center insulator.
Another thing there is a considerable amount of discussion about is the use of PVC pipe for coil forms and insulators. There are several locals using 4-inch PVC to wind coils for 160 meters and used weed eater string as a spacer for the turns in the coil. Then, they cut the ends out of 3-liter soft drink bottles and put the bottles over the coil, popped them in the kitchen oven and set the temperature to 425 degrees and watched the bottles shrink around the coils. When the bottles shrunk as tight as they could, the coils were removed from the oven and served up on 160 with a dash of 100 watts to the antenna. Now, I am told that not all PVC makes good insulators, but this was the white stuff seemed to work fine. I made a mobile-matching coil using 3-inch PVC and some #6 solid wire. This was a real thrill to hand wind, and it didn’t seem to cause any problems as far as arcing or any other such unpleasantness. The electrical PVC conduit is not a good choice for antennas. So, you may have to ask around to find out about your local PVC source.
Something else useful is a hot glue gun. I have used the low temp glue to seal a coax connector after it was wrapped with tape. After I put the hot glue on the tape I took a butane torch at a low flame and used it to even out the glue. If you do this, be sure your connection is not shorted because it will take a VERY LONG TIME to open up this connection. It sets up very hard and will be waterproof. By keeping the heat low from the torch, you will not damage the coax while this is done. It will be a weatherproof connection and can be submerged, if you do it right.
The hot glue can also be used to hold wire in place on a coil form. If you can, make a spacer by drilling holes in a piece of plastic or other material of the same hole-size as the wire and spaced as far as you want the turns to be. Then, split the material with a hacksaw. If you do it right, you will have a spacer you can put across the turns and when you get the wire into the spacer, then use the hot glue gun to stick the turns in place. All you have to do is use the spacer to keep spacing the turns correctly and run a bead along the spacer, being careful not to glue the spacer down with the wire. This works well if you are careful to give the glue time to set up before you move the spacer.
Another source of cheap antenna materials is the use of storm gutter tubing for verticals. This can be bought cheaply from places like Sears and some of the large discount supply stores. If you do this, keep in mind the guttering can cut you if you are not careful. All of the joints of this galvanized tubing type vertical must be soldered and can be done easily with a small torch and acid core solder. I had several antennas made in this manner and they worked just fine. I used the 3-inch round tubing and had no problem until a 90+ mile an hour wind mangled the array. Even then, since the array was on 75 meters, I used what wasn’t bent on 40 meters after application of a hacksaw to the remains.
A good source of plastic is a sign shop. Quite often they have scraps you can get for free and use to make insulators. Once, I used a 1/4 inch thick fiberglass sheet that fitted across an open window as an antenna feed-through. I did this by drilling holes in it and inserting two screws with terminals on both sides of the fiberglass then soldering the open wire feeders to the terminals in the house and to the outside terminal leading to the antenna. That was a good way to get the feedline in and out of the house. The ground wire was done the same way.
Things made for cable TV can be pressed into service for the important components. By scouring the racks at places like Radio Shack and others, most things can be found for our antenna projects. So, as you can see, it just takes a little detective work and ingenuity to make an affordable antenna possible.
Originally posted on the AntennaX Online Magazine by Richard Morrow, K5CNF
Last Updated : 9th March 2024