On the HamRadioHelpGroup, someone mentioned that he was interested in playing around with random wire antennas and asked for a recommendation for an “inexpensive manual antenna tuner that will work for experimentation.” Since he was experimenting anyway, I wanted to suggest that he build his own and then did a Google search for “random wire antenna tuner.”
Boy, was I surprised when my blog post, “The Almost Random Wire Antenna,” turned up as the #5 reference. Unfortunately, I’m using a commercial tuner that I bought many moons ago.
Next, I turned to the ARRL’s QST Archive. Here, I hit some pay dirt:
(NOTE: You have to be an ARRL member to access these articles.)
Both articles describe how to build a simple L-network tuner to use with a random-wire antenna. They are basically just a tapped coil and a variable capacitor, so it’s very easy to make your own.
Great posting! I think the random wire is one of my favorite HF antennas (and works pretty well on 6m, too). I have built a couple of simple L-network tuners over the years, including one that attaches directly to the back of my FT-817. When the random wire is wrapped around a 20′ fiberglass fishing pole, the resulting rig, tuner, and antenna setup can all be carried by the operator or mounted on a pack frame for true “pedestrian mobile” operation.
If you make the wire quite a bit less random — make it an exact half wavelength, in fact — then it presents a high impedance load and can be matched with a simple tuner and makes a very effective antenna; essentially, an end-fed dipole.
73!