Experimentals

The gears are always a turning in my head. So many ideas that normally just fizzle due to time or complexity. Those that make their way to the virtual workbench I might just post up here.I want to showcase some of the ideas that I have had that seemed like a good idea at some point. What you may see here are 3D prints that are probably not final revisions, but most likely the starting point of an idea that deserves discussion or further development. Sometimes I get some idea for a product that just seems cool and sometimes they are a real solution to a problem I have had.

Above is a 3D printed insulator. Please excuse the poor quality print, it was just a quick prototype. This was an idea I had to solve a real world problem of mine, and possibly yours too. Let me try to explain. I have built or bought many wire antenna throughout my ham radio hobby journey, dipoles being my favorite due to the easiest and simplest. you need insulators, or not, but most of time you use them on the ends of your dipole ends. I have always used the plastic or ceramic type. How I attached the wire to said insulator is the part I struggle with. I’m sure many will say I am just doing it the wrong way, and that’s fine. Everyone has their own way of doing things. I usually feed the wire through the insulator, fold it over itself, twist it around itself and either tape or zip tie to hold it together. Now if you have to cut to tune your dipole, you have to untape, or cut your zip ties and start over. This 3D printed insulator was an experiment to see if I could make a part in which I could feed the wire through a couple of holes and not have to fold the wire upon itself to keep it secure. Cutting and tuning would be so much easier if this works. As of this writing, I have not tested this in the real world, but shack testing seems to indicate that the insulator you see above works like a charm. The only thing that worries me about this design is whether this method will wear out insulated wire quicker or not. The other thing I still haven’t worked out is whether I need all the holes. The different regular hole sizes are for different diameter wire and the teardrop shaped elongated holes were an attempt to make a universal hold to fit any normal dipole wire size.

Above is a 3D printed dipole center insulator/connector. The goal of this idea was to incorporate a panel mount SO-239 and dipole center insulator in a small package. Top hole is used to attach rope or string and supports the center of the dipole antenna. The two outer holes you would put bolts and nuts where your antenna wires would attach using ring terminals and also connection point for the SO-239. The SO-239 panel mount would bolt onto the bottom. You could run a small ring terminal from one of the 4 mounting bolts to one side of the dipole and the center pin of the coax connector would have a wire soldered to it and ran to the other side. I have almost always ran a 1:1 balun when building my dipoles, but that isn’t always necessary, at least for some. Through some clamp on ferrites on your coax and you are good to go. Small package that fits easily in your go kit. I’m thinking of doing a modification to allow the use of bulk head style SO-239s.

Above is a 3D printed wire holder thingy. It is made to slide on those driveway markers you can find at your local hardware stores. It fits pretty snug so not to slip too much. This project came about when I attempted to homebrew a cubical quad antenna using 3D printed parts. Instead of using those arrow parts or printing my own version and then not being able to accurately get the length of the spreaders, I decided that some sort of adjustable keeper would be needed. This would allow you to oversize the length of your driveway marker fiberglass rods and use these on each end to tension your elements perfectly, even if you have to cut to tune the wire. I haven't tried these out on a real antenna yet, so this is why it has ended up in my Experimentals page. I would like to think that these could be super-glued in place once the quad has been perfected, with perhaps 1 being left unglued in case you wanted to disassemble the antenna for storage or portable transport.