A simple 20 Meter through 6 Meter (14 MHz through 50 MHz) Rapid Deployment Antenna:
[For general transmitting and receiving without any tuning neworks.]




This is the version of the rapid deployment antenna I made for use with my Yaesu FT-817 QRP Portable Rig. It can be easily deployed, and allows for frequent and quick frequency/band changes without twiddling an antenna tuner to gain a few extra decibels of performance, when the antenna mounting location and band conditions more materially affect performance by tens of decibels. Now I don't need to carry a tuner or VSWR meter in my small rig/battery bag! All of the antenna materials were scrap/surplus on hand, so this was a zero cost antenna for my portable rig.

Below is a closeup of the feedpoint insulator showing parallel resistors across the feedpoint (installed "through the board style" through the homemade lexan center insulator). In this case, the 2 Watt resistors I had on hand resulted in around 100 ohms of total resistance and will dissipate up to 8 Watts of Continuous Key Down Power without either leg of the dipole attached. However, in the real world the legs are indeed attached and radiate around half of the power delivered to the feedpoint.






(currently under construction)