Homebrew "LoStRoPo" Portable dipole

Going to the beach tomorrow brrrr... yes will be cold.

I have my vertical dipoles that I have had fun with in KH8 but I always wanted to build a /P multiband dipole where the 1/2 element is made up of resonant sections that are switched in or out. 10m,12m,15m,17m and 20m.

The lengths of the sections on each arm (so you need two of each) were (I had to do a bit of pruning to get it all resonant band at a time). 10m to 20m so this is from centre out...

254cm, 32.5cm, 52cm, 56.5cm, 112cm


There are multiple ways to connect the sections but I figured that probably the most effective was to make a dipole that was for 10m and then to add a section for the next band prune and move onto the next one, the connections between the sections I will be using Anderson power poles (as I have just located a small bag). They 'remake the connections each time so the antenna should operate fine.

I have included strain relief using some freebee credit card sized cards from Love Film (used two), Starbucks (used one in the end insulators) and Rohan (two for the dipole centre, the wire was from a reel from poundland which was twin copper and stainless steel, I only want the copper so I unzipped it (I could have left in for added strength but I wanted to see how light I could make this, and it still work. Right now the 10m of RG174 weighs more than the dipole elements.!)

I have called this the LoStRoPo multiband dipole.

Sotabeams kindly provided a couple of winders and the dipole arms fit nicely.

I used RG174 and some liquid tape on all the centre connections (again sotabeams).

I used some braided yellow string on the ends.

Will see how it does tomorrow....will be set up as an inverted V using a 10m pole or as a vertical dipole I will use alongside the kite antenna with the KX3.

I add photos and VSWR plots later.