On Sun, 10 Nov 1996 16:23:15 -0500 (EST), Robert Penneys wrote:
>
>I am deed restricted and have a wire or two up at home. I'm debating
>ground mounting a single vertical.
>
>Available to me are Force 12, Cushcraft, Butternut, Hy-Gain, Hustler
>and maybe more.
>
>At the moment, 40, 20 and maybe 80 or 160 CW are my main interest.
>
>Any ideas or opinions of yours are welcome.
Hi Bob,
My two cents, for what it;s worth :-).
First, forget all the snake-oil being sold in the form of "no-radial"
verticals, especially ones that claim to
work on 80 and 160.
Second, resign yourself to installing the best buried radial system you can
manage.
Third, pick one of several manufacturer's antennas to go above the radial
system.
I can recommend the MFJ 1492 (I think that's the number), which is 33 feet --
full size on 40. It is top-loaded
for 80 and has a separate element mounted on the side for 20. I've used the
80/40 meter only model
(minus the 20 meter element) and it works very well on both bands. I have it
playing above 60 radials of
roughly 1/4 wl. It is bandwidth-limited on 80, but is very efficient where it
is tuned. I tuned mine to the 75
meter DX window when I put it up in April and am at 111 countries worked on 75
since then with only
casual weekend operation possible. (I was using a Beverage on receive,
especially during the late
spring and summer months of high noise). It's worked out so well for me that
I'm in the process of
installing another 3 in a 4-sqare array. It would be possible to install a
relay at the base to add or subtract
inductance to cover both CW and phone segments, but as is, it covers about 50
kc with acceptable
SWR. On 40 meters, of course, it's extremely broad-banded since it's full-size.
This antenna needs one
set of light nylon guy ropes at about the 20 foot point.
I am not normally a fan of MFJ equipment, but this antenna delivers good value
for the buck, IMHO. Price
is about $150.00 from the usual mail-order sources. I would also note that MFJ
sells several other
verticals which fall into the "snake-oil", no-radial category, but this model
is just a plain, simple,
ground-mounted vertical for 80/40/20 with efficient top-loading on 80.
As always, YMMV.
Rolfe
W1VC
--
Rolfe Tessem | Lucky Duck Productions, Inc.
rolfe@ldp.com | 96 Morton Street
(212) 463-0029 | New York, NY 10014
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