Saturday, February 20, 2010

600m - The Octaplumb in the making

The success of the Plumbtenna made me buying parts for an Octaplumb.
Parts needed as follows:
  • 2 × 1m 32mm waste water plumbing pipes
  • 8 × 45° 32mm elbows
  • 1 × 32mm T-piece
The pipes need to be cut into 8 25cm pieces. One of which will be reduced to fit the T-piece and cut in half.

Due to the 45° elbows, the Octaplumb proved to be much less painfull to fill with wire. Actually, I was able to pay attention as not to twist the twin-lead speaker cable. The octagonal shaped of the aerial increases the antenna surface area. The elbows add some length to the circumference of the loop. All in all, more speaker cable is consumed by the Octaplumb. From the 10m cable, only 25cm on one end and 97cm on the other end are left.

The Plumbtenna proved itself, however, I believe the Octaplumb will take the lead.... Easier to build, neater shape, greater aerial area. With more twin-lead used, more capacitance will be distributed at the loop, less capacitive termination will be needed.


Next step, set up tuning and coupling, apply some glue too, publish the results....