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Flags and Pennants Receive antennas for limited space with good noise rejection like the Ewe. They are ground independent, too, a big plus! |
Here is a compendium of information about these excellent
low-noise receive antennas. The Pennant was originated by EA3VY and
optimized for 160 meters by K6SE, who first wrote about them on the
Top Band Reflector in 1998.
It also performs very well on 80 and 40 meters.
I built a Flag antenna pointed at Europe and was pleased with the
results. I plan to build more of them. K6SE did a great job
optimizing these antennas and explaining the design to fellow hams.
Actually,
JF1DMQ wrote an
earlier article
about the Flag antenna
in November 1995 in a Japanese magazine. His was only 3.3 feet
by 16.4 feet long (1 by 5 m). K6SE's 160m optimized versions are 14 by
29 feet (4.3 by 8.8m). | |
| - - Updated 26 Mar 2002 - - | - - Photo courtesy of W7IUV - - |
To my fellow low bands operators who have found the K3KY Flags
and Pennants page useful, my heartfelt thanks. We all owe a debt of
gratitude to Earl Cunningham, K6SE (SK), for his outstanding work
promoting these antennas. To all others who
contributed to the development of this antenna family, my thanks
also. My special appreciation to K3SX, who was the first to tell me
about Flags. Watch this space-
as time permits, I'll be adding
new items. This topic has grown quite broad and deep-
new contributions have appeared continually over the past decade.
My objective is to provide a compact and easy
to use collection of article links about these antennas. I believe
this listing has saved fellow hams a lot of search time,
over the years! | |
| - - Photo courtesy of W7IUV - - | - - Updated 01 Sep 2007 - - |
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Classic 
Rotatable Flag for 160 meters
by W7IUV
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| W7IUV's pioneering rotary Flag design, a true classic. Many have now been built. They are not too difficult to set up and get working. They have only a ~15 foot (5m) turning radius. Very impressive performance for its size. Null steering is great for knocking down precipitation static coming from a specific direction. Try one! Work DX from a smaller size QTH. This is probably the best rotary design to build, for first timers. Should you have any doubts, a fixed wire loop, pointed towards your desired DX, is the easiest of all to build. It will likely convince you of their value. Switching between your transmit antenna and the Flag, you'll sometimes hear weak DX signals pop up out of the noise to become completely readable. | |
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Pennant Antenna With Remote Termination Control by WA1ION | |
| Reduced Size and Elevated Flag Antenna Models by VE6WZ | |
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New
NX4D WF Latest Results by NX4D and N4IS Small Rotary Loop, Amazing Results |
4ea. FT50B-77, binocular, with 8 turns RG316, makes a very good choke (40dB!). - - Photo courtesy of N4IS - - |
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Waller Flag Common Mode Chokes by N4IS (.pdf 381KB download) |
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Rotaries- Flag vs. Waller Dual Loop by IV3PRK (.pdf 2.44MB download) | |
| The Waller loop is said to be the equivalent of a rotary Beverage antenna. That's right, I said "Rotary" Beverage. The basic Waller has only a ~13 foot (4m) turning radius. Are you interested? I certainly am! Due to low signal output, you will need two preamps, including one at the antenna. Good feedline decoupling is essential. The .pdf by N4IS shows some effective common mode choke designs. It takes a fair amount of detail work to get everything 'just right', but it's worth the effort. IV3PRK has also published some excellent info about relative performance of rotary Flag and Waller Loop designs. | |
| - - Updated 22 Aug 2014 - - | |
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