I been reading all of the chatter about the radial issue. I have a 100 foot 45G
guyed tower (3 sets of guys broken every 20 feet with large Rohn insulators).
It has 32 radials and is shunt fed with an Omega match using vacuum variables.
There is 2000 pfd in series with the 30 foot shunt wire and 1000 pfd to ground.
It is flat at 1830 kHz but not very broadbanded. I have a #6 circular radial
bus clamped to the three tower legs using stainless hadware. The radials are
soldered to the solid copper bus.
The tower is festooned with rotary antennas for 80 to 10 meters. It has 6 on
15, 5 on 20, 3 over 3 over 5 on 10, 2 on 40 (full size) and an 80/75 M2 rotary
dipole. It was my only real option on a 1 acre city lot here in Atlanta. I
should have done this 25 years ago when I moved to this QTH. It works great on
160 on transmit. I can work anything I can hear with it.
I am using a 240 foot DX engineering beverage (NE/SW), and a 300 plus foot NW
beverage using an ICE balun and termination resistor. I hear pretty well
considering my compromise lengths. The 160 meter receive preamplifier is a one
band unit by ICE. I use DX Engineering switching components to switch between
the beverages and have a DX Engineering feedline choke. I have found this setup
to be quite useful.
73,
John, W4NU
Atlanta
K4JAG (1959 to 1998)
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160 meters is a serious band, it should be treated with respect. - TF4M
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