It is a little frustrating to hear about all the good
conditions on 160M recently. On the occasions when I
have been able to stay up late enough for the path to
NA, all I have heard on this end has been bountiful
noise!
The discussion of end fed antennas brought this to
mind. It wouldn't often be practical for 160 M
because of size, but when I am on leave back at my
cabin in the NC mountains I deploy an antenna for 75 M
that allows me to run it directly away from the house
and down the slope behind to a distant tree. It is
not really electrically end fed, but as far as
physical lay out it is. The run of wire from the
eaves of the house to the tree is roughly 3/4
wavelength at the frequency of interest. I connect a
1/4 wave length wire to the coax shield at the feed
point at the near end of the 3/4 wave wire. I run
that 1/4 wave wire to a post just high enough to keep
it out of harm's way. I dress it so that it makes a
"V" in relationship to the main wire. By manipulating
the angle of the "V" and the length of a the 1/4 wave
wire a bit, I can get a 1 to 1 match at the desired
frequency.
If I want to get on 80M CW, I just clip a few feet of
wire to the end of the easily accessible 1/4 wave
wire. The SWR I obtain in the CW portion that way is
still less than 1.5 to 1.
As I said, it is probably not practical for 160M (nor
would it likely be any good at all for DX), but it can
be useful in one's bag of tricks when the situation is
such that the layout of things doesn't allow easy
access to the physical center of a low band dipole.
Mine winds up quite low in the center when deployed,
but it works well with my barefoot rig for ragchewing
with old friends around the Carolinas when I'm home.
I'm still hoping for some Top Band magic here before
the good season for the path to NA ends. I have had
no luck at all with NA since December.
73,
Charles - S9SS
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