We have reached the end of another year of crazy ideas here at Ham Radio Outside the Box and a repeat of last year’s severe winter has gotten underway in southern Ontario. The daily temperature high remains well below freezing and the ground is buried under a thick blanket of snow already. I have tried to “Keep Warm and Carry On” with more off-the-wall outdoor antenna experiments but succumbed to the biting wind and had to retreat to the warmth of the shack.
Here in the nice toasty warmth of my basement “Comms Room” I am surrounded by radio equipment, electronic gizmos, tools and almost enough wire to lay a new transatlantic cable. I also have computers. One of the computers runs the incredible HamClock program giving me instant access to updated solar propagation conditions, the current location of the International Space Station and real time data on the International HF beacon project.
Another computer is the one on which I am typing this post now. I recently realized that I have written so many posts related to field portable antennas I have built and tried that it would be a useful exercise to re-read them all. Heck, I surprised myself with some of the ideas that were posted and forgotten, but will now be resurrected. So, to end the year, I have composed a compendium of 35 of those posts – old and not-so-old – as a reference for readers to explore. I hope you may find some useful information for your own deployments.
I should stress that these are not all tried and tested designs. Some have worked so well I intend to keep them in my hambag for field portable radio operations. Others … well they were useful learning opportunities. Even if you only pick up a couple of tips such as the simplest, quick release method of attaching an antenna wire to the top of a pole the read will be worth your time.
NB: If you find any of these posts particularly interesting you can use the “Print” function on your computer and select “Save to PDF” or “Print to file” to keep a local copy.
ZZZZZ … ZZZZ … ZZZ
Ham Radio Outside the Box will now go into hibernation until the new year. Until then my best wishes go out to all in the hope that you will enjoy whatever religious or secular festival you celebrate at this time of year. Stay out of the cold!
Help support HamRadioOutsidetheBox
No “tip-jar”, “buy me a coffee”, Patreon, or Amazon links here. I enjoy my hobby and I enjoy writing about it. If you would like to support this blog please follow/subscribe using the link at the bottom of my home page, or like, comment (links at the bottom of each post), repost or share links to my posts on social media. If you would like to email me directly you will find my email address on my QRZ.com page. Thank you!
The following copyright notice applies to all content on this blog.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Discover more from Ham Radio Outside the Box
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Ham Radio Outside the Box 
How do OM John, thank you hugely for the work you’ve put in to your
articles and the ideas promulgated, keeping schtum = stagnation,
you’ve achieved the opposite while entertaining the troops!
We’re just beginning to cook nicely in our southern hemisphere summer,
the ideal time for lowering my ARRL-design wooden antenna masts after
nine years without any maintenance. Except for one rusted-out small
screw-eye which anchored a guy to the fence, all other hardware has
withstood nine years of life in westerly gales off the Tasman Sea 500 m
away – how? – by a generous application of grease on the threads and
in the holes-in-wood during assembly.
Merry Christmas and a Prolific New Year, looking forward to when you
come back out of hibernation!
Much gratitude —–
73 de Stan ZL3TK
LikeLike
Thanks Stan. I could use a bit of your NZ weather right now; it has been snowing almost every day this month. I had to struggle through over a foot of it in my backyard to refill the bird feeders yesterday.
LikeLike
Great Summary ! The Challenger is wonderful with its truncated radials . The art is to find how to position the short radial wire.. The 13 ft vertical by the British Chap Waters also is good for 20 and above, obviously a compromise though oh well for the condo. The SWR’s are 2.2 and below. I used the mesh as below !! I would like to propose you test and show in your fine public forum the use of copper mesh used to plug vermin holes for a counterpoise. , A link is attached . I’ve used this in the past 2 months with absolute success. If the feed point is elevated I may run a wire with a alligator clip to the ground and attached the mesh. In my testing a 8.5 ft length of mesh (comes in rolls) is better by a .2 SWR compared to 5 17 ft radials doubled back on itself in the same approximate width as the 5″ mesh. The nice of the mesh is that it can roll out nice on the snow or ground with a few rocks holding it in place. I claim it gives increased ” solidity” to the ground effects if there is such a thing. Its a poor man’s Cameleon (sp) fabric counterpoise they sell for 100 + so USD. I find it hard to believe this is pure copper , I have not soldered it as a test. I’d suggest at least taping the cut ends with duct tape to stop the unravelling of the mesh . The other bad so to speak is that after a time the copper may wear and deposit itself as tiny ting shards of wires , not too bad for the outside though not in the house for the Doggies which I have.. This stuff may work well for small inside verticals that need a easy counterpoise. Again the ease of rolling this out is great AND IT DRIES FAST IF WET especially compared to the Cameleon (sp) . Respectively submitted, if you decide to use and test this on your site I will accept use of my call and name (AA1AR, Bruce) as the initial proposer of this mesh as once the INFLUENCERS grab this it will be their claim to fame and this needs to be stopped. Some of them are fine like Waters though some have been compromised by “must use for POTA super yellow Poloni & XXXXX flexible cable” which I think is rather sad.. They just push hardware . I wonder how much money they make from all this . This mesh could also be ELEVATED and used as part of a pota performer by hanging it with a string thru its mesh. An interesting test !!! I really do need to suscribe (sp) to your channel. Sorry for the mispelling its 5 am Bruce S. AA1AR https://www.amazon.com/Copper-Mesh-Prefect-Blocking-Eco-Friendly/dp/B08PSLHWZT/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1YF5QRR4AOAQR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YJEVFO30iuWfii-aS0LyZqhl2p3_NwqoH8sQCRMneSIClgbl8syNMcHSRx8otcrCk47fE7PJTPN0to4efyxLlpi8H4o7WkbI63QkXXnVYqNycW9YEpXiWU9JdypAK4UdOxO9vlNg0J60tJIrFDQuSE0KdXt3Ya08wB1tPy7PHPrTfqgwrKnvMJ7B8UHCQCQNTDEyRSR6g3OtBsnicIMe5DssvlAFr7k1EvLEEQMkO5c.vsa4EQ0FlfyhmO85psjNiTfPcPSBjTzzGATB4eRPoOs&dib_tag=se&keywords=copper%2Bmesh%2Brodent%2Bcontrol&qid=1765793755&sprefix=copper%2Bmesh%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-4&th=1
LikeLike
That’s an interesting idea Bruce. My “outside the box” brain came up with another use for this product – it could be wrapped around a telescoping fiberglass pole and used as an antenna radiating element. The width of it might improve the bandwidth of the antenna. I’ll give this another look in the new year.
LikeLike
Excellent wrap-up! Happy holidays to you and yours. 73, Craig WB3GCK
LikeLike
Thanks Craig. I bet you are getting a lot of snow down there in PA too!
LikeLike
Thank you very much for this huge amount of information and it is now all in one spot in my computer.
Keep up the great work helping me enjoy this aspect of the hobby and for learning new things.
Wishing you the best.
73
Phil K7TTI
LikeLike
Thanks Phil!
LikeLike
I have only been following your newsletter less than a year. I am enjoying the content of your style very much. The annual antenna compendium is great! Thank you very much for all of the great ideas and education.
Best of 73s to you for 2026.
Chris Storey W6YBW
LikeLike
Thank you Chris!
LikeLike
Many thanks John for compiling all your experiments in one place!!!
Just like your collection of trans-Atlantic cable wire, I have a crate of parts I call “Dashed Hopes.” As we know, ALL antennas work, some a bit better than others.
Stay warm.
de N4REE, Bob
LikeLike
Thanks Bob. My ham junque collection is getting so big I’m going to have to start sorting through it and maybe getting rid of some of it. I have Germanium transistors from the 1960s I keep for nostalgic purposes. I re-use wire, even soldering scraps of it together for re-use. I keep all those empty plastic reels and cut the ends off to use the cylindrical bit for winding coils. Nah, maybe I won’t get rid of anything!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for all the info and entertainment thru the year, John!
I hope you and yours have a hapoy holiday and a fantastic 2026.
Rick N8TGQ
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Rick, happy holidays to you and your family. We’ll be back in January with more interesting ideas. I am working on my winter antennas now and will cover them in upcoming posts.
LikeLike