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Many
thousands of hams worldwide used it for many years, but over time,
like other commercial antennas, the Joystick antenna faded from
existence on the commercial market. It was sold by I ran across this antenna accidentally a couple of months ago on the internet with very little information about it and thought that this antenna needed reviving for those of you who have restricted space limitations for HF antennas. There was little information about it concerning the construction details so after a couple of months of searching the reflectors and using the "detective" work of Rick, VE3FMC, he finally located a source of plans for the Joystick antenna from Bob Morden, VE3EIM! I contacted Bob and he was kind enough to share the information he had with me. Also during the research and detective work trying to locate information about the Joystick antenna, I also found a very nice drawing of it on the A.R.E.S Niagra web site. The webmaster, Peter, VE3HM was kind enough to allow us to use the drawing from their web site. You will see presented below, two
different designs for the Joystick antenna. One is fed from the top
and one is fed from the bottom. You will also notice some variations
in the wire used for the coil, number of turns, and length
differences in the plans below. You can choose the one you like and
take it from there. Please note that Bob provided the plans in graphic files, not
text that can be readily copied. Now, Bob Morden, VE3EIM, who provided the plans below to us takes over from here:
(Note that the "random wire tuner"
article Bob mentions above is not included within this project.
Joystick overall length 90 inches. Coil 14-1/2 inches long. Fir or oak wooden dowel .735 inches (aproximately 1 1/4 inches) in diameter. Coil constructed using # 14 enameled wire, 219 turns. The Inductance of the coil is 45.158 micro-henries. Copper pipe .854 (13/16) inches in diameter. I might add, for those without access to a wood lathe to turn down the ends of the wooden coil form so the form will fit into the copper pipe at each end. Using the copper tubing as a guide, merely pencil around the copper tubing on the centre of the top and bottom of the dowel and using a Hack Saw (with apologies to those who use a hack saw properly by cutting only metal!) and cut to form a square on the dowel the length according to the diagram and then using a wood file carefully file the square round until it fits the copper tubing. As I mentioned before, on one end I made a loose fit so the antenna can be easily dismantled and placed in a trunk of a car for transport to a portable location. I found a hack saw was easier to control the cut on the dowel rather using a coping saw which tends to wander. I would suggest the builder use copper tubing as the coil is wound with copper wire as opposed to using aluminum tubing to avoid reaction between two dissimilar metals which might cause rectification at those points with eventual poor contact between the coil and the tubing. The contacts should be covered with Dow Corning RTV or coax seal to keep out the effects of weather. Some diagrams show the Joystick being fed at the top and others from the bottom. I think you will agree if you are using only 8 feet of wire from the Joystick to the rig, it would be fed from the top. If the Joystick is hanging from a tree, it probably would be better fed at the bottom. I have tried both ways and didn't detect any difference except you will notice that the feed line goes to the longest length of copper tubing in most cases.
More Joy Stick antennas The G3XOV JoyStick AntennaWA3WZR Modernized"JOYSTICK" Antenna Project Tuner suggestions Commercial built random wire tuner Random
Wire Tuner from MFJ Or build your own, do a search on
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