Jim (B)'s tutorial on 160m antennas is an outstanding guide to antennas for
this band.
THANKS Jim, I hadn't seen this document before.
It is really a great summary of the 160m vertical scenario.
(Apologies to Jim (A) for deviating from his original thread into 160m
antennas).
I assume Jim (B) was referring to the information on this page:
http://audiosystemsgroup.com/160MPacificon.pdf
One tip in that document that will be very interesting to many people is the
idea of an elevated folded radial, a solution proposed by K2AV. I have
been using this approach for about 20 years when operating from tiny lots.
I got the idea from Moxon in his book, HF Antennas for all locations. If
you have a tiny lot, this is very useful. Of course it doesn't equal 64
ground radials but you'll be surprised how well something this simple can
work.
One additional thing that I would like to point out is, like most papers on
verticals, the performance of different radial scenarios is laid out and you
can see the clear benefit of adding more radials, albeit with a diminishing
return on investments. What is not pointed out here, nor in nearly every
document I have ever see on this topic is how much better this type of
solution will work (for working DX) than a low dipole or horizontal
longwire.
Low dipoles on 160m are pretty worthless for working DX, but as Steve
pointed out, good for short range communications. For DX, any of these
verticals or even the Inverted-L will work a lot better than a low
horizontal wire, sometimes as much as 4 S-Units or more. That's 24 dB.
This is MUCH more significant than the benefit from adding more radials.
I'm not saying not to bother adding more radials, what I'm saying is don't
bother with horizontal antennas on 160m if its DX you are after (unless you
can get your wires up about 250 ft. in the air).
Important here is to get in the game (the vertical game). Put up whatever
you can and do it as best you can with the space and funds you have to work
with. And as Jim says, you can add more later.
BTW, when I say get in the vertical game, I'm not talking about a 4BTV or
14AVQ with a loading coil.
Jim's document points out exactly what is important for getting efficiency
with these antennas.
First get your Radiation Resistance as high as possible and then build the
best radial/counterpoise network that you can.
73 - Rick, DJ0IP
(Nr. Frankfurt am Main)
-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Brown
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 8:21 PM
To: tentec@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TenTec] 160 Meter Problem
On Mon,8/18/2014 11:13 AM, Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP wrote:
> Jim, it doesn't have to be a perfect radial network to work.
> But you need something.
See the tutorial on 160M on my website. It's mostly about antennas and
counterpoise systems. k9yc.com/publish.htm
73, Jim K9YC
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