I just had an idea that I figured I would run by the group and see what
everyone thinks.
I don't have any supports here for wire antennas, other than the house (no
trees, no flag pole, no tower). Ive been trying to get on 160 for some time
now. I used one of my wires (1/4w 80m, gutter counterpoise) to get 2 contacts
last night on 160, so I know I can do it. However, the tuning of the antenna I
used is an issue in itself, so I won't get in to that.
The other antenna I have is a 40m dipole in the attic. Its fed with coax
right now. However, I have the ability to feed it with ladder line. If I do
that I can add some length to the antenna and make a doublette. After all, if
I go with ladder line I need to feed it through my tuner/balun anyway.
How about this though: short the ladder line at the tuner and feed it as a T
against ground on 160?
There are a couple issues with this. First, my shack is on the second floor.
The ground line would have to be pretty long. For use as part of the antenna,
Im not sure this would matter much (ground for the rigs is another issue). The
other one is the ladder line would have to run parallel to one leg of the
antenna with several feet of spacing as the shack is on one end of the house.
However, I think it might work better than anything I have, regardless of the
issues.
If I do try it, do I run the shorted ladder line off the longwire port? Or
should I use one of the unballanced SO-239's? If I go through the longwire
port I go through the 4:1 balun. That will chop my impedance 4 times,
depending on what the impedance is of the antenna that could make it harder to
tune than if I wen't straight in to the tuning network. I have no idea what
the impedance would be, though.
What does everyone here think?
Steve, KC8QVO
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