Description:
Chances are you never heard of this antenna design. It is really simple once you learn how it is designed. My stacked vertical covers 8 bands, and you can make it with wire you might have on-hand. When done, the antenna will fit in your pocket.

Advantages:
• excellent on-air performance
• low radiation angle good for DX
• no lossy transformer required = efficient
• easy to build with commonly available materials
• very inexpensive (possibly no cost)
• compact & leightweight (138g = < 5 oz)

One disadvantage is the requirement for a support. While a suitable tree limb could easily work in many parks, some operators will need a mast to deploy this antenna.

Theory:
The design is basically a quarter-wave ground plane. It is similar to my multi-band linked vertical but uses very simple bolted joints instead of links.

With all segments bolted together you have a quarter-wave 40m vertical. By unbolting segments and using what’s left below you can change bands as desired. It doesn’t take long to lower the antenna, remove a section (or several), and pull it back up.

Like any ground plane, it requires a counterpoise system, like a set of untuned radials laying on the ground. Check out my FREE radials!

Construction:
The antenna should be approximately a quarter wavelength (¼λ) long for each band. Use an online antenna calculator (or 234/MHz = length in feet) at the frequency you are designing for. I tuned mine for the middle of General class phone band segments except 10m for the Tech class phone segment and 30m for FT8.

To build the 8-band stacked vertical antenna, you need 35 feet of wire. Separated zip cord or speaker wire would be fine. I used 18-gage insulated stranded wire scavenged from a vacuum cleaner power cord found at the curb on trash night. I alternated black and white wires in the “stack” to make sections easy to distinguish.

I attribute the difference between my calculated and tuned segments to my counterpoise system and ground conductivity.

Sections can be labeled with a permanent marker (Sharpie) using wide and narrow bands with wide = 10. As examples: 2 wide bands = 20m and 1 wide band plus 5 thin bands = 15m.

Some operators can simplify their design by eliminating bands they don't use. Limiting the stack to covering 20m through 10m would be an example of a useful 5-ban design.

Typically, it will be hung from a tree or non-conductive mast. The top of each section has a ring terminal for hoisting via an arborist throw line. TIP: Use a small "S-Biner" from Nite-Ize at the top between the antenna and throw line. This eliminates untying/retying knots when changing bands.

The bottom of each section has a fork terminal. Sections are joined with a short 6-32 machine screw (bolt) and nut. The fork terminals I used have tips bent to help prevent them from slipping out from under the screw head.

The lowest section has a banana plug at the bottom which fits into a double-female "barrel" connector facilitating a coax run to your rig. I simply clip radials onto the outside of the coax plug.

Section Connection Details (parts & connected)

Completed 8-Band Stacked Vertical

I wrap the wire around thumb and pinky fingers in a figure-8 for storage as shown above. This prevents adding a twist to the wire.

You can tweak section lenghts for best SWR. Of course, an analyzer will make tuning easy and precise, but you can use the SWR meter in your rig if you don’t have one.

TIP: Because of the overall height, this antenna is not practical for 80m and lower bands because it would be too long. I can throw my arborist weight over a limb 35 feet up, so that limits my stacked vertical to 40m and higher bands.

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