Presently I have an 80M wire 4-square with elevated feeds, about 10? high.
It surrounds an 80? topband shunt fed tower with assorted HF antennas.
I am feeding the 4-sq using a Comtek box with ¼ wave (cut for 3.65MHZ) RG-6
Commscope F660BEF PE jacket, flooded and copper clad steel center conductor
with 100 #43 beads .188? (18.8? in of beads) length at the feedpoints.
The verticals are cut for 3.75MHZ. I have 5 elevated radials that I have
shortened to 41? which helped significantly with the pattern over ¼ wave
radials. I use a coil between the coax shield and the 5 radials to have
minimum wasted power at 3.760MHZ.
I use a relay to add an additional coil at each feed point for minimum
wasted power at 3.530 MHZ.
Overall the antenna seems to work okay and has a decent pattern.
Here are my plans:
Bury the coax
- Instead of using ¼ wave lengths will use ¾ wave lengths as can?t
reach the feed points with ¼ wave length.
- Replace the beads with Big-Clamps #31 with 8 turns of RG6 as per
K9YC?s tutorial.
- I plan on using RG6. To date I have not had any issues for
several years except for one burnt F-connector. Maybe poor installation or
water got in the connector?
Questions:
- Any issues with first measuring the length of the ¾ length of
feed lines then adding the ferrite core? Does this have any impact on the
electrical length of the feed line?
- There had been some talk about copper clad steel not as good as
solid copper for the low bands. Is this really an issue on 80M?
- Any tips or suggestions appreciated.
73,
N2TK, Tony
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