Tom, I have been reading all this discusion about good
ground systems for the L antenna. I have no room for
such, but I do for an inverted-vee on 160. So that is
what I have.
I believe that with this V, I need no ground system. The two
legs play against one another, just as in a dipole, they are
balanced. And the inverted-vee set up yields"some" degree
of vertical polarization to the radiation pattern.
Is there a comparison of the two somewhere. I was a bit put-off
by ON4UN's (John's) dismissal of the inverted -vees in his book
on low band DXing: he claims the result is a partail cancellation of
the signal. He used the extreme illustration of bringing the two
legs all the way together to form a parallel line, in which case
total radiation cancellation will occur. Would all the usual
traditions of the inverted-vee that seem to work well for many
on 30, 40 and 80 not extrapolate down to 160?
Granted a very tall vertical would be best for top-band, but
most of us can't get there! And with only longer, skinny real
estate to work with, I opted for the inverted-vee.
Now my major problem is that Kauai is a loooong way from
just about anywhere, except another Hawaiian island, so
signals on top band are few and far between, except at
contesting times when the Big Guns with the big antennas
come on. Of course there is nowhere here for such elegant
recv'ing antennas as Beverages. So, my vee must do.
Now if I had the QTH of KH6CC or KH6AFS about 350
miles SW of here on the Big Island, that would be a different
situation all together. Jack's amazing tower, and Sam's Vee
beams and rohmbic will remain only in my dreams!
73, Jim, AH6NB (for a couple more weeks, anyway)
--
FAQ on WWW: http://www.contesting.com/topband.html
Submissions: topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests: topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Sponsored by Akorn Access, Inc & KM9P
|