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Re: [TowerTalk] 80M Delta Loop (bobtail curtain)

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 80M Delta Loop (bobtail curtain)
From: Brian Beezley <k6sti@att.net>
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2024 04:56:38 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Jim Brown wrote:

> This antenna would still work well with poor ground

The bobtail virtually eliminates loss due to feedpoint ground current. And it minimizes ground current loss near the antenna since high wire currents are well away from ground. But it can't escape the ground reflection losses at low angles that all vertically polarized antennas suffer over poor ground.

With NEC-2 I modeled a bobtail at 3.7 MHz. I fed it at the top of the center wire since NEC-2 can't accurately feed wires against ground. This should be essentially equivalent. I also modeled a dipole. Both antennas used #12 copper wire. I used permittivity = 9.5 and conductivity = 0.61 mS/m. These are the generic Hagn values for "mountains; rocky, steep hills" at 3.7 MHz. See http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/hfgc.htm.

I had to put the dipole at 140 feet to match the bobtail gain at 5 degrees elevation angle. Patterns:

https://i.postimg.cc/c4dXQnPq/az.png
https://i.postimg.cc/9F111fjD/el.png

There are many trade-offs between these two designs, but I think this is a fair comparison. Someone with a NEC version that can feed a wire against ground might want to check my equivalency assumption.

Brian

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