KJ4IVD'S 2 Meter 'Fabulous Flying F'

In preparation for a one-week beach vacation, I decided to take a "Gilligan-esque" approach to some temporary antennas I wanted to use and built everything out of bamboo.

A neighbor nearby allowed me to hack down some 70 feet of bamboo from her stand in the backyard, cut down to manageable 8-foot lengths. I had plans on making a 24-foot mast for a random wire, a 20-meter loaded dipole, and a crossed Yagi for working Oscar 51. But with the remaining bamboo pieces, I also came up with a 2-meter Moxon I dubbed "the Fabulous Flying F."

The elements are made from heavy metal wire typically used to hang suspended ceiling systems, measured and cut to dimensions dictated by the Moxon Rectangle Generator software. Black nylon cable ties hold the Flying F together; my plan was to go ALL Gilligan construction and use vine or some natural fiber rope to fasten the bamboo supports together, but there was too much stretching and everything just sagged.

The pics show the full size vertically-polarized Flying F, standing about five feet high; a closeup of the feedline terminals, and the gap between the driven elements and the reflector.

Since its a beach vacation and I had no test or measurement gear with me, all I can say is: With a perfectly flat beach, and with the Flying F mounted high on another bamboo mast well above the roof of my rental beach house, the signal just goes on forever.

Al Peterson KJ4IVD

Springfield VA / Washington DC

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