Malloy Communications Antennas

I have been working on the conical monopole antenna since 1992.  I designed it because I was looking for something else after building most of the other designs.  The monopole provided something more exotic.  Little did I know what I was signing up for.

The reader should understand the antenna needs wide open spaces with no power lines around.  Exactly what I don't have (see photos).   When I used my little one for field day, it worked exceptionally well.  The only problem was it is so broad banded that it was re-radiating the signals from other hams operating in the area.  We had it operating on the 15 meter band (21mHz) but the antenna was acting like a vacuum cleaner to the other signals.  Thus, you need to have them in an open field, with little or no RF around.

You might observe the SWR (Standing Wave Radio) graph.   Admittedly, this measurement was taken during one of its better days.   In the past I have seen it load from 11 mHz to 25 mHz.  I have also seen it load erratic on 17 and 18 mHz and go no higher than 21 mHz.  Sometimes without doing anything to it.

A conical will require a lot of ground wires to make it happy.  Don't even think about putting it out with less than 40 or so radials.   The ground is the other half of the antenna.  The radials must be at a minimum of a quarter wavelength at the lowest designed frequency.   Sometimes in the ham literature you will see multi band antenna systems with only four and sometimes eight radials, each at a different length to accommodate multiple ham frequencies.  The technical literature (non ham radio) suggest other wise.  Thus, the radials must be symmetrical and at a length proportional to the lowest frequency.

Please contact us for more information about this or other antennas we offer, or to place your order.