Slim Jim 2 Meter Antenna Project

This project was based on the basic design from WB5MAJ, Fred Siebenthall, and I appreciate the detail that he went to in his write-up of his antenna project. This entry is for my "remote deploy build" but I have another variant mounted on a PVC staff connected to my chimney.

E-mail me if you want a copy of his pdf for a project of your own.

Here is the finished product with the exterior cover on.
Here is the top cap with nylon screw and loop for hanging the antenna up.
Here is a view of the underside of the top cap.Picture of the bottom cap with the pigtail sticking out. The pipe clamp is used to hold the cap on while providing an easy way to remove the internal antenna from the outer casing if needed.Close-up of the bottom cap with slot cut for cable exit.This is the internal PVC carrier with the antenna wire wrapped around it and the pigtail goes up through the bottom and comes out at the cutout futher up the pipe.This is a shot of the cutout and the showing the connection of the pigtail to the antenna wire. The wire goes through the 3/4 pvc pipe via drilled holes. Wire is bare 12g copper wire. Close-up of attachment to antenna wire.

Pictures from recent amature radio tower antanna repairs at HCA.

Our big beam antenna, which allows us to basically talk all the way around the globe, appearently took a direct lightning strike and fried the balun up on the antanna so we got the new parts and then had to lower the tower and antenna down to replace the balun.

This picture show our 4 antennas on the roof. The big beam antenna is easy to spot but there is also a folded dipole, a G5RV wire, and a 2 meter/70 cm UHF/VHF just below the beam.


Assembling the crew.Getting ready to lower the tower onto the ladder to replace the balun.The culprit! Quite fried. Yikes!!Implementing the lightning arrestor box. Nice work Jack KA4OTB.

Before.After. Nice.Checking out the successful work on the antennas.

Many thanks to all who assisted in the project.

• HCA Maintenance Crew - Thanks Guys!!
• Williamson County ARES Members - Jack Cox (KA4OTB), Dave Matthews (KI4PSR), Hilton Dean (W4GHD ), Randy Paulson ( )
• HCA Amature Radio Crew Members - Rick Froggat (KI4RQV), David Gatewood (N2DAG), and myself, Keith Walker (K1KRW)
• Also thanks to HCA for supporting our volunteer efforts to man this station for disaster communications with great backing.