Topband
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Topband: New entry to TopBand with antenna question

To: topband@contesting.com
Subject: Re: Topband: New entry to TopBand with antenna question
From: Michael Carper <mike@wa9pie.net>
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:52:46 -0500
List-post: <topband@contesting.com">mailto:topband@contesting.com>
With everyone's advice, I thought I'd send a quick note to thank everyone
and let you know what I ended up doing.

I put a 160m inverted-L together.

I have 130' piece of 10-gauge wire up.  Probably 80' goes straight up...
the balance horizontal.  I started off with four 14-gauge radials, also
130' are laid on the ground..  There is no ground rod at the base.  I used
a dipole center insulator, placed on a wooden stake... radials terminate at
bottom... driven element on topic.  The SWR dips to 1.2:1 at 1795 Mhz.
It's 1.4:1 at 1830 Mhz.  I'm thinking of taking a foot off of it to raise
the resonant frequency up above 1800 Mhz.

But it looks really good so far.

Thanks for the advice all.

Mike, WA9PIE



On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Michael G. Carper <mike@wa9pie.net> wrote:

> Hey folks.
>
>
>
> I've been a ham for 37 years, but I've spent my entire ham "career" on
> 80-10m (with the exception of 7 countries worked on 160m about ten years
> ago).  For the most part, the same obstacle has kept me off TopBand that
> prevents most - antenna space.
>
>
>
> Now that I've made DXCC on all bands 80-10m (and very close on 6m). and
> since we've recently moved to a place with 7-acres and a nice tall
> tree-line, I figure my options for 160m are better.  That said - we're
> leasing this place and I've probably got 2-years here.
>
>
>
> My goal is simple - make DXCC on 160m within the next 2 years.
>
>
>
> So I'm looking for some advice about the antenna.
>
>
>
> I'm very tempted to buy a B&W folded dipole and call it done. but I'm
> curious about what others are doing.  I've got an amplifier, but no
> high-power tuner.  So I want to avoid a tuner - the folded dipole seems to
> get me there and I can put it up at 70' or so in the elm trees.
>
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>
> Mike, WA9PIE
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>
_______________________________________________
UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>