Thanks Tree and the rest!
I don't contest for two reasons; I lack talent and patience. No way I'm sitting
in a chair past 2 hours! Besides, my ears are shot thanks to the US Navy (but
I'm not complaining!).
My goal here, being new to Topband, is to see what the experienced operator has
learned over these many years and apply it to my operation. If someone bought
their first Jeep and wanted to build it, I would be invaluable to them based on
my decades of experience.
A 3/8 wave vertical was suggested as well and Tim's antenna could be added
later. I also found Tim's QST articles from 1996 that illustrates the sloper
antenna I saw.
I have a custom built, single tube, dual-band amplifier for 160/80 and I plan
to use it, so I'll have some gain for TX. I'll continue my education on RX
antennas!
Dino - KX6D
________________________________
From: Stan Stockton <wa5rtg@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2022 9:55:41 AM
To: w5zn@w5zn.org <w5zn@w5zn.org>
Cc: Dino Darling <dino@kx6d.com>; topband@contesting.com
<topband@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: Topband: What antenna would you build?
Different people have differing views on the definition of a serious antenna.
An 8 circle with 8 directions of BSEF verticals would definitely be serious.
If you wanted one tower and didn’t want to do the work to install a minimum of
100 radials or more I would consider one tall tower with elevated radials. The
best antenna I ever had in Arkansas was 192 feet of 25G which I put up in 1980.
This tower was shunt fed with the feed point at 60 feet and had 9 radials (3
per leg) taking up several acres with the ends pretty high.
Nobody had a four square back then so competition was not as great, but it was
a great performer. I think it was better than most serious antennas at the
time which would be quarter wave verticals with extensive, on ground, radial
systems.
That antenna for transmit and a half dozen thousand foot Beverages would be a
serious 160m setup even today.
73… Stan, K5GO
Sent from my iPhone
> On Mar 24, 2022, at 10:34 AM, w5zn@w5zn.org wrote:
>
> Hi Dino,
>
> I started with a single 1/4 wave vertical as Tree notes and it worked
> extremely well for years, however after a period of time I had a desire to
> upgrade the single vertical to a system that offered some gain on TX. I came
> across the array that Tim, K3LR, mentioned in "Low Band DX'ing" that
> describes his systems and discovered I could build this array around the
> existing 1/4 wave vertical and achieve 4-square performance in a smaller
> footprint area. I have now used the array for four years and the performance
> has been outstanding. After reading the info regarding this array in Low Band
> DX'ing I documented some additional details of my experience that were
> presented at the Dayton Antenna Forum and also published in the National
> Contest Journal. Copies of those documents can be found here:
>
> https://www.kkn.net/dayton2018/2018_Dayton_Antenna_Forum-160_meter_TX_Array.pdf
>
> https://ncjweb.com/features/sepoct18feat.pdf
>
> As Tree notes, the very first step is to determine exactly what your
> objective is. The five element parasitic array has met my objectives for both
> contest and DX activities.
>
> 73 Joel W5ZN
>
>
>> On 2022-03-23 22:38, Dino Darling wrote:
>> If you may and you are willing to indulge me; if you were about to buy
>> 5-acres with no neighbors or restrictions and wanted to erect a
>> serious 160M antenna system, what would you build and why? We can pass
>> on the Radio Arcala discussion; nobody's that cool.
>> A loaded 4-square? 1/4 wave stick (or longer)? Phased dipoles? (fill
>> in the blank)?
>> I've seen a 200' tower with three phased dipoles tilted on end. The
>> end of one side of the dipole was anchored and insulated at the top of
>> the tower and came down like guy cables. About half way down was the
>> feedpoint, were an isolated anchor cable continued down the same path
>> to ground (like a guy cable). However, the second half of the dipole
>> was pulled back to the base of the tower, from the center feedpoint
>> insulator. It looked like an arrowboard chevron or a regular dipole
>> that was turned 90 degrees on its side. The coax was horizontal back
>> to the tower. There were three of these spaced 120 degrees apart and
>> fed with a phasing network to steer it. I understand it works great.
>> So what would you build?
>> Dino - KX6D
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