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Simple,Cheap, Easy and FUN!
The first recorded use of the slinky as an antenna was by American soldiers during the Vietnam conflict. The slinkies were thrown over trees and used in emergencies when the normal antennas weree out of action. This practice soon became popular amongst Ham radio operators.
A normal sized slinky contains around 66 feet of coiled metal, this is more than enough to get you on most of the HF bands.
Used as a dipole, two slinkies, fed with either balanced line or coax, will make a very acceptable, and very short, antenna. I regularly use such a dipole on all HF bands from 40M upwards.
My slinky dipoles are normally stretched out to around 15 feet total length, and though a tuner they work very well indeed.
Just run a carrier cable, non conductive of course, between two supports. Then run the slinkies along it, fixing it along the way with clothes pegs, cable ties etc. Connect the feed line, one conductor to each leg. And plug into your tuner. You then have a very cheap, portable antenna.
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