RSGB “ RADIOTODAY” Magazine, july 1999

 review

 And now for something completely different, the D2T antenna made by tocopies of close-up photographs of different parts of the antenna,
Giovannini Elettromeccanica of Florence, Italy. This company's main line which are very useful if you find the detailed descriptions a bit
of business is military and commercial HF antennas and they do make confusing.
some big antennas. For example their 630/LP/10 log-periodic, which The tools required to construct this antenna include a range of
covers 6.5 to 30MHz, has a maximum element length of 22m, a spanners, a small screwdriver, a soldering iron and a drill. This last
boomlength of 15m and weighs 370kg. The rotator for this antenna would item is used to drill a hole in the aluminium boom to match holes in
turn my house! the fibre-glass element support clamps once the fibre-glass element
They also make a large range of antennas for the amateur radio market, supports have been accurately aligned. A nut and bolt is inserted into
including a full-size two-element quad for 80m to 10m . No wonder there this hole to prevent the elements being moved in high winds.
are some big signals coming out of Italy! The multi-stranded copper wire comes in one roll (part number
6002704000 046) and has to be cut into four pieces "exactly equal to
6.2m" and two pieces "exactly equal to 2m". I was concerned about
my ability to cut lengths of wire "exactly" to a given length but
description overcame the problem by making a wire jig on the drive in front of the
The D2T is a much more modest antenna, designed specifically for the house using bricks. The secret is to measure twice and cut once. The
radio amateur who has limited space for antennas. This antenna claims to ends of the wire are either soldered to lugs, to connect to the
be able to operate over the frequency range 1.5 to 200MHz with an transformer or the terminating resistor, or to connecting tubes to
average SWR of around 1.6:1 and has gain and directivity in the upper connect to the phasing lines.
HF bands - it appears almost too good to be true. The specification is The wire elements are fixed to the fibre-glass elements using plastic
given in Table 1. tie-wraps . Once the antenna is assembled, that's it! No adjustments
The construction of the D2T is different from any other mini-beam that or tuning are required.
you will have seen. It comprises two equal 6m-long elements spaced 2m
apart. The first element is fed from the transceiver feed line via an RF
transformer / balun. The second element is fed from the first via two
metres of transposed open wire feeder, similar to the ZL Special antenna.

The second element has installing

an 820 ohm non-inductive The complete antenna
terminating resistor as weighs 8.5kg (19lb) and
shown in Fig 1. Each of the was fixed on a rotator on
wire folded elements is the chimney of the house
supported on glass fibre without difficulty, and
tapered rods. without any additional
help. From previous
construction antenna tests I knew that
The antenna kit, comprising this is not an ideal
fibre-glass tubes, an location, due to nearby
aluminium boom, the telephone wires and the
terminating resistor and the close proximity of
balun / transformer are electrical wiring and
shown in the photo. All the plumbing inside the
other parts, including all the house. On the other hand
nuts and bolts are enclosed it would probably be
in polythene bags carefully typical of the sort of
labelled with 13-digit part locations a compromise
numbers. antenna such as this
The assembly instructions would be used.
are very detailed and there I had no difficulty
were no problems installing the antenna. I
encountered in the used a different mast-to-
construction of this boom clamp, using U-
antenna. There is also a bolts, rather than using
detailed drawing, with the one pro-
details of the positioning of
every nut and bolt. In ( Clockwise from bottom left ) :
The kit of parts for the D2T
addition there are a number antenna. All the small parts,
of pho- including all the nuts and bolts are
enclosed in polythene bags,
carefully labelled with a 13-digit
part number ; Fixing the antenna
ready for testing. The antenna is
mounted on a short mast on a
KR-600RC rotator, which is fixed
to the chimney using a double
clamp ; The completed D2T
antenna ; Close-up showing
construction details

The D2T Antenna

Ideal for radio amateurs, short wave listeners and commercial HF / VHF radio users where space is at a
premium, the D2T is a physically small antenna that covers a very wide range of frequencies and has some
gain and a reasonable front-to-back ratio. Sounds too good to be true? Peter Dodd, G3LDO, investigates

july 1999 radiotoday 21

review 
vided. The reason for this was that the on the 21 and 28 MHz bands: a
original clamp uses heavy-duty bolts contest is a good environment for
with locking nuts that would have to be testing an antenna. Over a period of
tightened using two big spanners while, about two hours i was able to contact
at the same time, supporting the many DX stations such as ZS6
antenna. (South Africa ), 3B8 ( Mauritius ), VP5
( Turks and Caicos ), VP2V ( British
Virgin Islands ), LU ( Argentina ), PY (
Brazil ), HC8 ( Galapagos Islands )
and many Ws ( USA ).
performance
Some initial checks were made on
several bands using the MFJ-249 SWR
Analyzer. The SWRs measured are how does it work ?
shown in Table 1, compared with the This antenna is such a different
manufacturer's SWR data and the concept in multiband minibeams that i
SWRs measured by Rinaldo Briatta, tried to make a computer simulation
I1UW, in another independent review. of this antenna using EZNEC.

The instructions state that the SWR can vary with height, ground The simulation performance was similar to the real antenna but
characteristics and nearby objects. I tried reading the SWR while exhibited F/B patterns that were worse than the real antenna. The
rotating the antenna but it varied very little. The SWR indicated that it F/B on one band could be improved by placing a small capacitor in
should be well within the range of the built-in tuner of my transceiver, parallel with the load resistor but that upset the F/B on other bands.
a Kenwood TS-850S. If I had tried to model this antenna before I built it I would have
The transceiver was connected and I had 59 each way contacts with concluded (incorrectly) that the antenna configuration was
EA9AU (Spanish North Africa) and I0YKN (Italy) on 21MHz. Initial unsuitable for broadband applications.
tests on receive, using the S-meter, indicated that the front-to-back There many be some who would question the wisdom of placing a
(F/B) ratio on 28MHz was poor, although I was able to work DX resistor in an antenna configuration to tame the wild excursions of
stations such as VU2 (India) and LU (Argentina) on 28MHz; ET3 impedance that normally occur in a multiband antenna without
(Ethiopia), CX3 (Uruguay), JA (Japan) and BA (China) on 24MHz, traps. They might conclude that it is lossy and not worth considering
ZL1 (New Zealand), HL2 (Korea), JA (Japan) and W (USA) on for amateur applications. Yet one of the most effective antennas I
21MHz and ZL4 (New Zealand) on 18MHz in the following five days. know is the non-resonant rhombic - which uses a terminating
All these QSOs were made using 100W. resistor. The important thing to remember is that the D2T antenna
However, the antenna appeared to be beaming the wrong way round. is a high impedance antenna, so all other losses are small.
I checked the instructions and noted the specification gives a F/B of If you consider the case of a small trapped mini-beam the radiation
just 5dB on the higher frequency bands, so no great claims are made resistance is very low. For a given effective radiated power the
for F/B. I also found that the second element behaved as a director current through the elements must be very high. This means that
rather than a reflector - see Fig 1 - I should have read the instructions the resistance of the material used to make up the elements is
more carefully! The D2T antenna was repositioned relative to the significant : in effect with a low impedance antenna you have a
rotator, and then things seemed more 'normal'. built-in series resistor in the elements.
I then looked for a more objective way to check the F/B ratio, and The D2T is an ideal antenna for someone who has a restricted size
arranged a series of tests with a local amateur station, Chris, G3NDJ, location and has to install an antenna that does not require
located about 18km away. The results of these tests, and tests with adjustment. My experience of installing other mini-beams is that the
other stations are shown in Table 2. There were always too many big adjustments are very critical and they can only be tuned for the
signals on the 14MHz band to make any meaningful measurements SSB or CW sections of the band but not both. The D2T antenna
there. has no such restrictions.

The front-to-side (F/S) was very good on The fact that the antenna will work on the
all bands from 14 to 28 MHz; measuring lower HF bands - even though its
better than 20db on the S-meter. performance is less than a resonant
As regards gain measurement, i dipole - is also a very positive feature.
compared it with my skeleton slot antenna, Thanks to Giovannini Elettromeccanica ,
which is an elongated loop, as described in Via e Mattei 9, 50039 Vicchio ( Florence),
The Antenna Experimenter’s Guide (1). Italy; tel: +39 055 844124; fax: + 39 055
The skeleton slot antenna has a calculated 8448797, for making the antenna
gain of 11.5 dbi on 28 MHz ( including available for testing.
ground reflected gain, and as installed at
my location ). The D2T was 1 to 1.5 S- The D2T antenna is featured in the
points down on the skeleton slot on 28 Giovannini Elettromeccanica internet
MHz. These measurements are not very page at http://www.antenna.it and their e-
precise but they do show that the mail address is: [email protected].
manufacturer’s figures are reasonable. In the UK, the D2T will be available from
I had a lot of fun with this antenna. I Waters&Stanton PLC at £ 395 inc VAT.
seemed to be able to work all the DX that i Writo to 22 Main Road, Hockley, Essex
could hear although i concentrated on the SS5 4QS; tel: 01702 206835, or e-mail:
bands 18 MHz and above because this is [email protected] for details.
where my interest lies. I had many contacts
on 7 and 3.5 MHz but these were restricted further reading
to around Europe. [1] The Antenna Experimenter's Guide by
I ventured on to the CQ WPX SSB contest Peter Dodd, G3LDO. Available from
over the weekend of 26 / 27 March Radio Today sales, price £15.00 - for
details of how to order see Book Browser
on pages 60 / 61.

22 radiotoday july 1999