Introduction

I have been a big fan of mobile and portable operations for many years, car and caravan, UK and Germany (DA1EK) and I find there is always room for improvement especially on the choice of antennas.

We have a favourite caravan site which we visit regularly during the year located in High Normanby about 4 miles South of Whitby and geographically inland high above Robin Hood’s Bay North Yorkshire. The owner Alex is a good friend and he arranged for me to put up poles and wire antennas on the site perimeter and in addition sought clearance for me to rig up a long wire from my caravan pitch into the neighbouring field which was excellent and very kind of him (his brother is a radio ham so that helped I don’t have his callsign sadly).

The only drawback at times entering the adjoining field was I had to negotiate rare breed sheep, goats, and an Alpaca so challenging to say the least (neither of us sustained any injuries during the skirmishes).

I chose and am currently using the Bantenna sleeve antenna system. See www.bantenna.co.uk.

The Bantenna is basically an outer and inner nylon sleeve which has a mesh copper wire along its full length and is mounted on a 7m fishing pole and connected to the radio via a balun and 50-ohm coax. Fig 1 shows the full kit with an additional short mounting pole and a tow ball clamp.

I have 2 installation methods which I use on different ground conditions:

1. Ground mounted hard standing

the short pole is clamped to the tow ball Fig 2. Once that is in place the nylon sleeve is pulled gently along the extended fishing pole and then the pole is placed over the short pole in the vertical position. The balun is clamped to the pole via a Velcro strap and the yellow pigtail from the inner sleeve is connected to the balun. Fig 3. Because the thin end of the fishing pole is very sharp and can rip the inner sleeve when being inserted, I cut a short length off the end and glued a plastic bead to the end which make it smoother and less chance of snagging or bunching. Fig 3a. Fig 4 is a close up of the connections.

2. Ground mounted soft ground

the installation is basically the same as described in para 1. The difference being the short pole is hammered into the ground instead of being clamped to the tow ball. Given the amazing flexibility of the fishing pole, guying is not necessary.

Best DX thus far on the soft ground mounted installation from the caravan site was PJ2ND Curacao Island 15m CW 100W – 4700 miles.