To recap the number of replies I got; the overwhelming consensus was to
contact Don, KH6DX/m and also Jon AA1K/m which I have now indeed done. Don
sent me a very nice long email describing his setup and Jon and I have had a
number of exchanges. (thanks guys)
Don has 118 dxcc's (and WAS) with his 1500w setup and Jon 54 dxcc's or so
with his 100w setup. I am in awe. Very significant accomplishments from
the mobile, guys !
The rest of you pretty much all recommended the HI-Q 5-160 antenna as being
the "King" of antennas.....
A few reminded me to keep it up high, add grounds to panels, and add a
capacity hat if possible.
I will briefly describe what I ran for a couple months in the winter of
1994-1995(?)...if someone would model it, I would very much appreciate it.
Even a "best guess" as to efficiency would be neat. I have a guess, but I
would like to see what the experts say. I can't afford a HI-Q 5-160 this
year, and love to build, so . . . .
Rig was a barebones FT-101E running something less than 100W....straight key
strapped to my knee (ex army tank issue)
I worked 15-20 countries with this setup on 160m in just very casual
operating here and there for a couple months in the winter of 94/95.
Car was a 1989 Ford Escort wagon with a big set of homebrew roofracks.
(grounded to roof on 4 sides)
Antenna itself was on the center of all the roof racks. Antenna was an old
1950's? Webster BandSpanner
set aprox (as best as I can recall) somewhere between the 40m and 80m
bands.(IOW I was using some loading from the skinny Webster antenna) Had a
small base shunt coil to achieve perfect SWR on a small slice of 160m. On
the very top of the tall whip I mounted a large ice cream bucket (is that a
half gallon ?) with 50->100 or so turns of #26AWG wire wrapped around it.
(It's just a rough guess......This was 13 yrs ago afterall!) Above that,
attached right to the top of the coil, I had I think 4 (maybe 5), ~8 foot
long wires (as a capacity hat) tied to all corners of the car, via 40lb test
fishing line. I don't think I had any top "whip" above the coil that I
remember. Looked like a mess, but worked quite well. (nothing to compare it
to)
I still have some of the parts to rebuild this setup and am in the middle
of modifying a set of roof racks to fit my 02 VW diesel, so given a nice dry
day w/o rain, could rebuild it for old times sake, hi ! I have the WEbster
on the rear of the car now, but it's too close to the rear hatch and no top
loading or coils are installed yet. I think the roof is the answer.
Thanks to all.
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