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Re: [TowerTalk] Loop vs Dipole...I'm original "asker"

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>, "Richards" <jruing@ameritech.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Loop vs Dipole...I'm original "asker"
From: "Gene Smar" <ersmar@verizon.net>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:31:06 -0400
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Richards:

     Obviously, I'm no expert on what YOU can put up at YOUR QTH.  I can't 
visualize what supports you have available or can build or how much $$ you 
have available for your hobby; that is always a consideration for antenna 
selection.  But let me give you a few options to consider.

1.   Replace all your existing wire antennas with a top-hat antenna.  That's 
a dipole wire about 100 feet long, up as high as you can get it, and fed 
with open wire line through a balun and tuner.  Feeding the open wire line 
in the normal fashion, i.e., through the balanced output of the tuner, will 
cover 80M up to 10M.  From 10 MHz and up you ought to see some gain over a 
dipole, although your antenna patterns per band will also show some nulls. 
The higher the freq the more and deeper will be the nulls.  This may or may 
not bother your operation depending on just where the nulls fall (you 
wouldn't want a null facing Europe, for example.)  For 160M you can short 
the open wires together at the tuner end and feed that end as a single 
long-wire antenna against a ground radial system connected to your tuner in 
the shack.

2.   If you were serious about having a tower on your property (and you have 
plenty of room for a self-supporter like a Trylon), then you can install 
Yagis for 20 through 10M and use the tower itself as the radiating element 
on 160 through 30M.  Look up <shunt feed> on the TowerTalk archives for some 
ideas on that subject.  My Trylon loads well on 160M and 80M, plus I have a 
triband Yagi for 20/15/10 and a rotatable dipole above the Yagi for 40M.

     To me its sounds as if you have too many wires near each other in your 
back yard.  I'm guessing that they are interacting a lot, affecting 
performance on each band.  The signals you're hearing are loud, but you 
can't cut through, probably because of inefficiencies of your TX antennas 
due to interaction.   All those wires near each other are becoming part of a 
big antennas system with who knows what kind of radiation pattern.


73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F
P.S.  And for goodness sake please build your own flat-top; don't waste 
money buying one (if you can even find it commercially.)


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richards" <jruing@ameritech.net>
To: "Gene Smar" <ersmar@verizon.net>
Cc: <towertalk@contesting.com>; "Steve Hunt" <steve@karinya.net>
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 5:23 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Loop vs Dipole...I'm original "asker"


> Good aphorisms.   Thanks for the post.
>
> I have four antennas now...  A 40 meter dipole... a 20 m dipole...
> an AlphaDelta DX-B Sloper ... and Alpha Delta DX-EE 40-10 meter
> fan dipole.
>
> My conundrum is what antenna should I try next that would get me
> out better.   110 ft x 60 ft backyard with few or no trees to hang wire
> from (one possibility in one far corner of the yard, but not a real
> good one to use.)    Goal is to rag chew and do occasional foreign
> type DX - I want to get WAS on 160, 80 and 40 meters for sure.
>
> You tell me to put up an antenna... but you do not say WHAT antenna
> would be better than what I have now.   What is NEXT?  and how do
> I compare the various options against the others?  A tower will get me
> on 20 and higher - maybe 40 - but what to do to work 80 and 160?
>
> AND I AM TIRED OF NOT GETTING HEARD WHEN I CAN HEAR
> THEM.
>
> What would YOU do next if you had my goals?   Cheers!!!
>
> ////////////////////////////////   Richards - K8jhr 
> //////////////////////
>
>
>
> Gene marJHR wrote:
>
>>
>> o    The difference between theory and practice in theory is less than 
>> the difference between theory and practice in practice.
>  o    Caveat Amateur.
>>
>> o    Pick a design, build it and get on the air!
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