My home antennas -as used today...

[KX4QC]

And who knows what other hare-brain idea comes tomorrow... Antennas are often easy projects to explore, particularly like this wire one.

I get kind words about my HF signal, and generous reports on FT8 etc., so the question always comes up, "what is this antenna, and how much power from the linear?"

No amp, just a barefoot Icom IC-7610 with 1.42 firmware, running DPD https://www.ab4oj.com/icom/ic7610/dpd.html , standard HM-219 mic, and free Linux software for digital modes, RTTY, SSTV and logging. The complete antenna cost way less than a B*ckm*st*r -a fine antenna- and models considerably better.

The main antenna is a 20% off-center fan dipole suspended on glass insulators at about 90', well clear of vegetation. The element pairs are 10G insulated stranded copper https://www.homedepot.com/p/Cerrowire-5 ... /202304645 , half-wave for 160m and 20m, verified with a Mini 1300 VNA https://www.amazon.com/Mini1300-Analyze ... B09KGXL4L3 .

Antenna thickness really does matter. (Try changing wire guage and stranded/solid in your favorite modeler, EZnec or similar -and be astonished.) The balun + common-mode choke is a Palomar https://palomar-engineers.com/ 1:6 CB-6-1-1500EB. Coax is RG-213 throughout.

Lightning protection is by ARRL Insurance*, assisted by PolyPhaser IS-50UX-C0 gas discharge and blocking capacitor, grounded to a surrounding bonded circle of 8 x eight-foot copper-clad grounding rods round the building, also connected to the domestic supply ground. Additional protection is from heavy duty knife switches for the antenna and tuner control lines. The IC-7610 is protected additionally with a Paradan Radio https://paradanradio.com/ single Antenna Disconnect Actuator controlled by the ACC2 port pin 7 of the IC-7610.

A single cable feeds an Icom AH-730 remote tuner, to a Diamond MX610 duplexer, splitting HF to the fan dipole, and VHF to a 2-element Moxon at 40'.

So there it is, really just "100W and a wire".... *And yes, we had a direct strike, and ARRL Insurance is truly very very good!