Steve,
Thank you, and Jerry, for going into this further. By the way, I can recommend
the spacers from CNC73,with the following caveat: They are designed for 14
gauge THHN, stranded or solid. I have some imbalance in my system because,
though I bought two partial spools from the same vendor, one turned out to be
THHN, stranded (7/19 I think) and the other was tinned, with more, finer
strands and a bit thicker insulator. So I reamed the spacers/spreaders out on
one side to accommodate this and said "the heck with differences between the
stranded THHN and this more flexible, tinned wire.
Since I am rarely interested in 160 meters, just looking to see what I can
work, if I can work, I will not alter the setup at this time. That doesn't mean
I won't alligator clip extra length on if I work a 160 contest...heck, it's
just warming the clouds, anyway. Might as well make them a bit warmer!
On 20 meters last night, comparing with my AV640 vertical about 18' off the
ground at the base, Russian stations were much more readable on the dipole,
perhaps an S-unit better, maybe a bit more. I don't know the usefulness of the
Pegasus S-meter calibration, but suffice it to say it was noticeable.
Similarly the path to JA was much better on 40 on the vertical this AM; the
dipole runs about 300 degrees, maybe 310. I'm just delighted that I'll have 80
meters for the first time in years.
73,
Art
--- On Fri, 4/8/11, Steve Hunt <steve@karinya.net> wrote:
From: Steve Hunt <steve@karinya.net>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] SLIGHTLY OT
To: "Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment" <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Friday, April 8, 2011, 3:46 PM
Art,
If you mean extending the ends off at 90 degrees to the main dipole at
the 25ft/30ft level, that's fine. Just think of it as adding end
capacity loading to an electrically short dipole. The important thing is
that it raises the resistive component and drops the capacitive
component of the feedpoint impedance - both of which significantly
reduce the VSWR and loss on the open wire.
But note that we are focussing on 160m here - there will be a "knock on"
for the other bands which will likely be detrimental. On the higher
frequency bands there will be much more current in those low extensions
than there is on 160m, and that means the "effective height" of the
antenna will be lower.
73,
Steve G3TXQ
On 08/04/2011 20:57, Art Trampler wrote:
> I'm not familiar with "TLW." Do you have an opinion on greater than 90 degree
> bends, in opposite directions, rather than vertical drops? The ends are only
> up 29' at one end, about 25' at the other (ground is uneven, so I compensated
> this way).
>
> There is a possibility I could string another 50' on each end, forming a
> nearly complete letter "Z/Zed" if you will. The antenna currenly runs NW-SE,
> and this would involve a run due west at one corner, and ENE at the other.
>
> Messing things up, or promising?
>
> Art
>
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