I was given a VHF collinear along with a 2 meter beam from SRS (Stockport radio society). As i already have a little collection of 2m verticals i decided to modiy this "GIFT" as i see it into a 20m 1/4 wave vertical after i have nothing that resonates on a single HF band as all my wires i have put up have just been random.
Thas how it looked and stands at 13ft high.
It consited of 3 seperate elements which are out of phase which is done by those "S" shaped wires as you can see. I took these of as i want the RF @ 20m to see one length.
I was left with two gaps which i joined using crimp on spades and self tapers in the holes the "S" wires came of.
I checked the joins with a multi meter and while i was at i thought i would check the SO239...........a short! Maybe theres a matching device inside.
After i opened the bottom up i found no matching coil/capacitor but lots or crud and corrision which after some scrapping removed the short circuit .
I had to add a length of alluminiun tubing to get the antenna at 16.6ft.
Under 17ft but looks more like 30ft when its up, far too big to stay up around here. Also the swr wouldnt go below 2:1 but when i moved the antenna to front garden it went below 1.3:1. I ran 2 wires out as ground planes from the base of the antenna although these are not visible in this picture. My next idea is take the antenna back to its original size and add a loading coil in the top section so it will tune down to 80m.