Some years ago, I convinced our local club to try Horizontal Vee beams for
Field Day, and we did so, with fun results. For three years, then moved to
Extended Double Zepps and later Horiz. Loops. For Field Day, Horizontal
Vees have to be close to the ground, about 10 feet off, max, or else they
are too much of a DX antenna. They are highly directional, so it took 3 for
us to cover most directions and we still missed some sections. Our angle
was about 40 degrees between wire legs.
Ours were not terminated, so were bi directional. Termination of the TT
ones makes them uni directional. Sloping cuts down on the mast needs.
Should still work well into the coasts from a central QTH, if you put up
multiple ones. Vees are a point to point antenna and you would have to
swivel them around as propagation moves east to west with the sun. I would
modify the TT one to provide terminated or non terminated use. We fed ours
with 450 ohm line to a balun equipped tuner.
Should tune up with a tuner tuner circuit or Antenna Analyzer as they are
low Q antenna, and you cannot peak on noise heard.
We made our own Vees. You need at least 14 ga wire, for if you make long
legs, (ours were 10 waves on 10m) they sag. You have quite a tension in 320
feet of wire leg! Use conduit wire from 500 foot roll sold at Home Depot.
Cheap. You can terminate a Vee with a quarter wave stub on each wire. The
termination resistor is not needed. Of course, it helps to have good RF
earth under the Vee and its far end for this stub to work well.
A fun antenna everyone who likes DX should try at least once. Not too
practical if you want to work 360 degrees randomly. But, a great companion
to a vertical.
73,
Stuart
K5KVH
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