For those interested, below are links to two rather long (2-hours each) YouTube videos that were done by for the UK Denby Dale Amateur Radio Club in May and June respectively last year.? Rick is the guy who designed (over 5 years of hard work) the two Aerial-51 Off Center Fed Dipole (OCFD) Antennas I highly recommend that SpiderBeam currently markets through VibroPlex.? IMHO they are absolutely the most effective and best performing OCFD Antennas available from the commercial market.? The longest, at roughly 135 feet long, is the with no tuner needed on 80/40/20/17/15/10 Meters.? The other OCFD Antenna that Rick designed and SpiderBeam markets is the 67 foot long with no tuner needed on 40, 20, 15, 10 and 6M with SWR below 2.5:1 on all of those Bands.

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In 2021 I exchanged a dozen or so emails with Rick as he walked me through the process of building my homebrew, lighter-weight version of the that we have used so successfully during the ARC of Parker County Field Day type events.? I skipped building the 80M RMU and use the Tuner on my radio to work 80M.? We use this antenna with two 100W radios simultaneously operating SSB on two different Bands (40M, 20M, 15M or 10M).? We use a Low Band Systems QuadPlexer coupled to individual Low Band Systems Band Pass Filters to accomplish this capability.

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In the videos below, Rick explains why the Aerial-51 807HD and the Aerial-51 404UL Antennas perform so well.? Rick focuses on the hybrid 4:1 transformer Balun and the 1:1 Common Mode Choke he designed that, when combined, enables these antennas to perform without a tuner on so many Bands and curtails the Common Mode Current that is so typical with OCFD type antennas.? In Part 2, Rick describes in detail how you can build the hybrid Balun and the antennas.

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Part 1 - The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Off Centr Fed Dipole (aka the Windom) -

Link to Part 1 Commentary (with additional links to resource information) -

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Part 2 - Hitch Hikers Guide to the Off Centre Fed Dipole Part 2 - ?

Link to Part 2 Commentary (with additional links to resource information) -

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73,

Bob – KG5SQJ

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