How My Black Widow Vertical Morphs into an Up & Outter Antenna By, Edward R Breneiser, WA3WSJ I really like to play radio in the great outdoors. In fact, the father away from people, the better for me to play radio! After trying dipoles and other antennas that worked, but took to long to erect in the woods, I designed my own. Before designing it, I decided it had to meet the following prerequisites: 1- Fit in or on a backpack 2- Lightweight 3- Multi-band 4- Setup in five to ten minutes maximum with no tools The result is what I call my Black Widow Vertical Antenna. The name came from the pole I used to erect it. But, after many hiking trips on the Appalachian Trail, I rarely use the pole. I just throw a 20lb fishing line over a tree branch and erect it on the trail KISS Method! The BWVA weighs in without a pole at only one pound and this includes the coax! With a pole, it weighs in at around three pounds and that s with a twenty foot pole! The antenna tunes up on 20m,30m and 40m without a tuner. Here s what my original BW looked like. The pole is a twenty foot fiberglass collapsible down to around three-four feet. I also use it as a hiking pole by putting a rubber furniture boot on the bottom! Kodiak Island, Alaska BWVA
This antenna is a tried and true antenna and has been used around the world with great results. I designed it to be a QRP antenna, but I have put 100 watts into and it just gets warm to the touch. For additional information and how to build and use this wonderful antenna go to the following URL: http://wa3wsj.homestead.com/bw.html BWVA Morphs into Mini BWVA I later had a need for a travel antenna that had to fit in my backpack. It had to work on a couple of bands and once again be easy to put up. A friend gave me this small 14.5 foot pole to try and boy and it worked out great! The pole is a product from Japan and is a fiberglass pole that extends from nineteen inches, yes nineteen inches, to 14.5 feet!. Complete Mini BWVA with Self-Support System This antenna works on 20m and 17M, but with a larger coil, could work additional bands. I just used a coil that I had in the shack and tuned it to work on those bands. In fact you could use the components from my original BWVA and just try it and retune it. Walt, KB3SBC used this antenna during our NPOTA Utah Trip in many parks with great success. He just bungee-corded it to the rental jeep.
Specs: Pole length: 19" to 14.5 feet Pole weight: 9 oz. Wire & coax: 6.5 oz. Coil Assembly: 3.5 oz. Total weight: 1.1 lbs - 1.5lbs with guys Three radials of 16 feet each Top radiator wire ~ 10.5 feet Coax RG174 ~ 10 feet Mini BWVA Morphs into an Up & Outter I think it was during the 2011 ARRL Field Day when Craig, WB3GCK, bought what we now call the Up and Outer Antenna. It didn t take much time for him to put the thing up. In fact he used just plain old speaker wire for the whole antenna. The Up and Outer is actually an inverted-l antenna fed with 50-ohm coax through a 4:1 or 9:1 Unun. He also used a small antenna auto tuner with his Yaesu FT-817. Pictured below is the setup we have used for all our Field Days since that day. This antenna setup tunes what I like to say, DC to Daylight! I have tuned this antenna with my Kenwood TS-480sat on all the HF bands tried to date plus 6m including the WARC Bands. I did add another 31-foot radial for better operation on 80m etc. Please note: All radials droop to the ground. DO Not use the radials as guy wires.
Here s what the radiation plot looks like. As you might see, it s pretty much an omni- directional pattern. This is a side view. SWR 50-ohm Plot on 20M
SWR Plot on 20M 75-ohm coax As you can see, the SWR plot using 75-ohm coax looks better than the 50-ohm SWR plot. But, I use 50-ohm coax all the time with this antenna with great results!
This antenna works great with an auto-tuner 80m through 6M. I used this antenna while camping at the shore in Delaware and it worked great. I used it with a LDG Z11-Pro II Auto Tuner. I just supply RF to the tuner and it tunes that band! Once I have all the bands tuned, it remembers the tuning on each band. I now use this antenna with my Elecraft KX2. My KX2 has an internal antenna tuner so I figured I could get rid of this piece of equipment. So, I setup the Up and Outter in my back yard and WOW! This thing tunes on all the bands my KX2 can throw at it. Since I hike on the AT, taking just my KX2 and this small antenna works wonderful! I just throw the entire antenna and radio in my backpack and I m good to go. I save weight and space which are precious commodities while hiking. The Mini Up and Outter is a one point in the tree etc to erect antenna. I usually just throw the out section into the trees with a sinker on the end KISS Method! I have used this antenna at a few AT Shelters now with good results. I just bungee cord the pole to anything close to the shelter or the shelter itself. It usually takes me around ten minutes to put it up and get on the air. If you don t have any trees, no problem! I made a self support system that s really light and small.
For additional information about this antenna and Unun, please go this URL. http://wa3wsj.homestead.com/up-outter_bw_mini.html 72, Ed, WA3WSJ