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10-80 solid brass slinky ham radio dipole antenna hf dx
Our SOLID BRASS 10-80 Dlinky Dipole
*This antenna is an exclusive from Slinky Antennas! Slinky stopped making the Solid Brass Slinkies in December of 2007 due to the increased price of brass. We immediately bought up the supply from the large toy stores nationwide and now have the Brass Slinkies made exclusively for us.
A Quality Air-Wound Coax Choke Balun has been added to the antenna at no extra charge to you! We've done research on which balun should work best for the Slinky Dipole and based on that research, this Choke Balun has been added to this antenna to help users fight off common noise associated with large outside antennas and also to give you a more balanced radiation pattern!
The Air-wound Coax Choke Balun also prevents your coax feedline from radiating spurious signals and helps transfer all the RF to the antenna thereby reducing Radio Frequency and Television Interferendce (TFI & TVI). Thia antenna, like all of our antennas, is hand made by Retired Senior Citizen Ham Radio Operators. Of course, all of the electrical connections are soldered using only the finest rosin core electrical solder. This antenna comes with an air-wound coax choke balun that has an SO-239 connector on the other end for easy connection to your own coax. Below, you will find instructions and facts covering installation, hints on use, SWR, and how to have fun with your new antenna.
*This LIMITED SPACE ANTENNA works on 80 through 6 meters with a good antenna tuner.
A Slinky is a coil made of conducting material and it is already resonant at several frequencies. A Slinky has some strange mechanical properties and it has some interesting electrical properties too especially at radio frequencies that we all use.
A standard Slinky coil resonates as a quarter wave between 7 and 8 MHz when it is stretched to lengths between 5 and 15 feet. To tune the Slinky within that range all you need to do is stretch the coil to approximate size, then expand or contract it to reach the resonant frequency you're looking for.
We've been making Various Slinky Antennas since 1965!
Every antenna we sell is made by hand by retired senior citizens/45+ year electronics technicians who have been licensed hams for no less than 45 years each! They have all built their own Ham rigs, numerous HF,VHF and UHF antennas, and other electronic components!
A few notes for new or prospective hams who are not yet learned in antenna theory;
This is a LIMITED SPACE ANTENNA!
* A balun's purpose is to allow connecting a BALanced load (e.g., a dipole) to an UNbalanced line such as coax, thus the name, Balun. In transmitting antennas, this is accomplished by presenting a high impedance (resistance), to RF currents flowing outside the coax shield. This forces currents in each side of a driven elements to be equal. This is especially important in the Slinky Dipole antenna because it assures that the dipole, and not the feed line, is doing the radiating!
When you connect center fed antennas, like dipoles, V's, triangles, yagis, rhombics, loops and so on, to coaxial cable, unless care is taken, you can easily end up with feed line radiation. Not only can the loss in power be quite significant, but the radiation characteristics of the antenna system will also be seriously compromised.
This simple 1:1 coax choke balun is composed of numerous turns of the coax feed wrapped around a plastic core .
Some Of Our Technical and Non-Technical Notes On Using Slinkies as Antennas and Our Slinky Dipoles
We've had numerous people claim they use all sorts of power levels into these antennas, but we have personally never used more than 300 watts in 47 years on the air and that was to do a test! We are firm believers that there should be a 100 or 200 watt limit on all bands at all times which would give everybody a chance to use the bands instead of a few hams running 3000 watts 10 kc wide taking up half the available frequencies when 50 watts would have been more than enough!
* We make absolutely no claims that these antennas will stand up to high power and abuse! After all, the balun is made from RG-58U and licensed hams are supposed to know a little about coax too!
Your Slinky Dipole or short-wave antenna can be easily hidden by putting hooks into the soffets at the corners of the house and tying the antenna to the hooks with a long piece of heavy fishing line or weed eater line strung through the entire antenna and it's center insulator.
You can do anything you want to outdoors, after all you're a licensed ham radio operator and you took a test to get your license (We Hope) and you've probably done this so many times before it's old hat!
FROM ONE OF OUR ORIGINAL 1966 INSTRUCTION SHEETS
Even if you're going to stretch it out tight or close to it, you should run a rope inside the coils. Each of these antennas works better at different lengths according to their height above ground and that usually takes a little experimenting at your location. Even with my 2-40 dipole in the attic, I run string through the entire antenna so that I can adjust it in both length and spacing. My vertical in the shack has nylon string through it too. It lets me adjust the height by simply looping string around any loop of the Slinky. I can make the top half close spaced and the bottom half wide spaced. I have one Slinky stretched from the top of a windowsill over to the old entertainment center, which houses my radios etc. I have another 2-160 in the attic stretched 66 feet from one end of the house to the other. It has nylon string running all the way through it.
You can also hang any of these antennas as inverted vees in a very small space! I also made an 80 meter vertical (25 feet long) out of one 67 foot Slinky by throwing a weighted string over a tree limb and pulling up one end of the Slinky with another string tied to the bottom end and letting it hang down and tying it off before it touched the ground. I used another Slinky as a ground radial at the bottom stretched out only 5 feet and attached each one to the coax ends. The possibilities are endless it seems, and I wake up in the middle of the night very often with more ideas, but there's not enough time in the day to try them all so far. I'm hoping all of you will try new things and get back to me on what you've done. If you're going to use the original steel Slinky and the Black Oxide Coated Slinky antennas outside for any extended length of time, we suggest you get a 97 can of clear spray paint from Wal-Mart, stretch the antenna out to about 10 feet, and put a couple of coats of paint on the coils. After all, they're made from steel and will rust over time if not protected from the elements. The antennas made from Solid Brass Antennas, 24K gold plated Brass ones and the powder ones do not need to be painted. We don't do the painting here because we would have to meet OSHA requirements and build a $100,000 professional paint shop and the antenna price would shoot up to around $200 each.
The Slinky Dipole is not a trapped all band antenna and it's not a magic answer for those who want one antenna to be resonant on every frequency on every band!
No all band antenna is as efficient as one that s cut to one resonance frequency! If you have the room for separate resonant dipoles for all bands, then that's the way to go! This limited space helical antenna will not outperform those resonant dipoles on every band, but it can be adjusted to work specific bands 40-10 without a tuner and with a good antenna tune, it should allow you to work 80-6 meters and usually all of 2 meters. Many users swear they can work 40-10 without a tuner and without ever having to adjust the antenna, but height, location, trees, buildings and other surroundings can make a difference . The Slinky Dipole can be used as a dipole, an inverted vee and even vertical with the ground side stretched along the ground and the hot side vertical, and probably a few configurations we've never dreamed of. In most installations the ground side does not need to be stretched out as far as the hot side. The total length of wire is always there just coiled up. The Brass 6-160 in my attic has the hot side stretched out to 30 feet. The ground side is only 20 feet long and stretches around a 90 corner. Have fun playing with it and let us know if you find new ways to use it. I have one Brass 160 model outdoors at 33 feet and one in my attic at a height of about 20 feet above ground. The attic 6-160 antenna is held up by short pieces of weed eater line stapled to the roof rafters. Both are almost flat over the entire Ham Bands including 6 meters and 2 meters. In fact, they are flat from 118 MHz to 174 MHz. NOTE: I can not use the 160 meter band with my 2-80s , but some people swear they can!You should be able to do quite well too, if you're using A GOOD ANTENNA TUNER.Have fun and please let us know some of the things you've done with these Slinkies !
CAUTION! ALWAYS STAY CLEAR OF ALL POWER LINES
Installation, height and surrounding objects are different for every user. Some users don't need a tuner and some do!
We work all day every week day making antennas and The Ole' Slinkyman usually works every night until the work is all done.
For productivity purposes, we do not have a telephone or computer in our shop and we do not take phone orders or phone calls at our Homes!
When we get home from making antennas each day, we download the orders that came in that day and check our e-mails. Since we are closed on Saturday and Sunday, we download orders placed over the week-end on Monday and those orders are filled in the order they came in. We are always 2 days behind on Monday, but usually get caught up by Wednesday.
or P. O. Box when it is delivered.
Every antenna is fully inspected and tested before it leaves the shop.
Due to the easy destruction of the Slinkly coils by misuse, we do not accept returns on the Slinky Antennas!
Remember, you never need to stretch the Slinkies out far enough to ruin the coiling!
The 130' length is always there at any stretch and as long as the coils are not touching your tuner should do the rest.
