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Re: [TowerTalk] 160m antenna ideas / suggestions

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 160m antenna ideas / suggestions
From: Wes Stewart <wes_n7ws@triconet.org>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 21:25:22 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
I'm sorry to have confused you.  When I most recently* ventured onto top band I added some extensions to my existing 40/80 inverted vee to resonate it on 160.  Despite what some here believe, I'm no dummy and know that a vertical (or mostly vertical) is preferred.  Hence, I have constructed one.  I don't consider it quite finished because it needs more radials. As a matter of fact, I stopped at the electrical supply place today and bought another 1,000' of insulated 14 AWG so I can add some more; hopefully before the weekend.

My original point was that some "experts" have this knee jerk (heavy on the jerk) reaction when you say you are using a horizontal antenna on 160.  I'm much too old to suffer these fools gladly and say so.

I neither contend that I have nor intend to have a world-class station on 160.  I've never had one on any other band so why start now?  I'm goal orientated, 100 countries will complete my 9-Band DXCC and I will be satisfied.

* My first top band QSO was also my first top band DX.  In 1959, my HF RX (BC342) died.  But I had a DX-100 that covered 160.  So I took an old car radio, which in those days used permeability tuning, and adjusted the slugs so it would tune 1.8 MHz.  The i-f in those was 262 kHz and needing a BFO I built a 250 kHz oscillator with a crystal I had on hand. Close enough. I adjusted the injection level by moving the two chassis relative to each other.  The antenna was a wire plugged into the transmitter which ran through the casement window up to near the top of a Eucalyptus tree in my parent's back yard.  I heard and worked a VE7. Unfortunately, the log and QSL if I got one, are long gone.

Wes  N7WS

On 1/25/2018 7:19 PM, john@kk9a.com wrote:
I am confused, your QRZ biography indicates that you are using an inverted L
on top band.  Certainly you must have realized that generally a vertical is
a better 160m antenna than a 45' high Inverted V.  I have tried ~40' high
inverted V's and they work terribly, even in the Caribbean.

John KK9A


from [Wes Stewart]
To:     towertalk@contesting.com
Date:   Wed, 24 Jan 2018 21:35:24 -0700

I'm a relative newcomer on top band.  I have only 86 entities worked.
Apparently, I failed to get the message since sixty-seven of them were
worked with an inverted-vee dipole with apex at 45' and the ends barely
above head high.  This was both the TX and RX antenna and TX power never
exceeded 500 W.

N7WS

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