April. The Sporadic E season is about to start. And since my last antenne for 50 and 70 MHz didn’t survive a storm it is time for a new one. This time I bought the 5070OWA9 fom EAntenna at the local Hamshop. It is a 4-element antenna for 50 MHz and a 5-element antenna for 70 MHz mounted on a 3,55 meter boom. The driver for 70 MHz is passively feeded from the 50 MHz driver.
Mouting
Mounting the antenna was quite sraightforward. I needed extra tools like a 5,5mm socket and a 2,5mm Allen key, and a 7mm wrench to mount the coax, the rest of the tools are provided. But… the guys at EAntenne forgot to drill some holes in the 5 supplied mounitng plates to put the 70 MHz elements on the boom. So I had to drill 20 M6 screw tap holes (the holes itself are there). To bad, but the local Hamshop already mentioned it on the webshop.
The balun
I still got a Current Balun with ferrite clamps from the old antenna so I decided to recycle this one. Else I’d suggest to make an ‘ugly balun’ or ‘air wound rf balun’ with some coax windings. The balun I use is from Innovantennas and bought a few years ago together with baluns for 144 and 430 MHz.
