Many hams frequently forget that their station is a "system" comprised of major elements. These elements include the Rig, the Operator and the Antenna. The hierarchy places the most emphasis on the Rig with the Antenna not given much thought. [Our forgotten element!]
Today's posting started with a trip down the old rabbit hole. I subscribe to just a few reflectors including Ten Tec and SWAN. I have several radios each from these two categories.
So, it was a bit of a surprise to see on the Ten Tec reflector that they had a booth at Dayton. I thought they had folded their tent and were just a name from the past. That led to a trip further down the hole to the Ten Tec website. Something caught me completely off guard which was a product evidently introduced in 2023.
This photo leaves you in the dark a bit, but the product is a continuously tunable Dipole, where the dipole length is adjusted to the operating frequency. Think of the StepIR, only this is a dipole whose length is changed from the shack. The product is called the Ten Tec Tune - A Tenna.
This would be a good compromise if you live on a small lot and can have but one antenna. Essentially, I think the portion of the antenna not used as a part of the radiator now is part of the feedline.
It is not clear how you get it to lengthen once retracted but I suspect some heavy fishing weights on the ends would use gravity to do that job. This sort of approach certainly would keep the dipole from drooping. When I had the extended Lazy H antenna, I used a bucket full of stones to keep it taut.
I did not see any pricing for this jewel but certainly those with the knack employing Arduinos plus stepper motors with some take up spools could whip up something in their back yard.
Collins Radio back in the day had a product called the Tape Dipole, Model TD-1, which essentially were two tape measures where you could precisely spool out 66.2 feet and be on 40M. This is same concept except using the Armstrong method of deployment.
I was totally unaware of the Ten Tec antenna or if they were still in business making things. True this is just an item on their website so is this just vaporware. Regardless of the current status you caught my attention and if I had some time, I would whip up something for my use. Immediately I thought of "completing the triangle" and as I did with my Dipole and turned it into a Delta Loop.
If any blog readers know about this product drop me a line at my QRZ.com email.
Several years ago, I had a couple of QSO's with a ham in 4-Land where on our initial contact he was running a Kenwood TS-2000 and a chunk of wire on the floor of his garage. He shared with me that he wasn't making many contacts so a QSO to the left coast was DX. Several weeks later another QSO and he proudly announces he upgraded to a ICOM 7850.
That is a 5X increase in investment from $2K for the TS-2000 to $10K for the IC-7850. He lamented that while the 7850 had more bells and whistles, the number of contacts had not improved.
So, what were his expectations using the same chunk of wire on his garage floor? For a lot less money he could have kept the TS-2000 and put up a decent dipole. Any dipole even up at 15 feet would be a marked improvement over a random chunk of wire on the ground!
Always slightly ahead of the curve...
73's
Pete N6QW