The W5GI �Mystery Antenna�

W5GI's �Mystery Antenna� gets a lot of attention. Possibly because of its daft name.

It looks like a G5RV, but W5GI (now SK) used coax stubs to give what he called �a coaxial colinear array on 20m�. It consists of a half wave length (at 20m) of 300 Ohm ribbon that feeds a dipole centre.

Either side of the dipole centre are two pieces of wire 16ft 6in long.These are then each connected to the inner of a 16ft 6in piece of RG58 coax. The outer is left unconnected. The far end of this is then shorted and connected to a further 16ft 6in of wire, giving an antenna with a total span of 99ft.

I've now been using one for about three months, so find out what I think of it, is it really a "mystery" and is it worth making one!

Download the report.

Update: I have been doing some more modelling with the antenna as an inverted V and if mounted at about 10m with the ends at 3m you'll find that the lobes vanish and it becomes pretty omnidirectional at higher frequencies. On 20m you may find it radiates best broadside to the wire and less off the ends - this seems to match what I have found. Plots for 20m and 10m Inverted V have been added to the report.

Further update: I have now included the original CQ magazine constructional info in the PDF. I can also confirm that the 50 Ohm resistor method I suggested to determine the exact half-wave electrical wavelength on 20m works a treat as I have just built another one.