[CQ-Contest] WARC Antenna on a single tower for the contester?

[Barry]

Hi Tim,
I had a similar setup when I lived on the east coast.  I talked with the 
antenna mfrs at Dayton, then modeled it, too and the WARC antenna really 
messed up the pattern on the high bands.  Being primarily a contester, I 
decided against it.

What I wound up doing was put up a vertical dipole hanging from the 
tower for 30m and used the C31XR on 12 and 17.  It certainly wasn't 
competitive on the WARC bands, but let me work what I wanted to work.

73,
Barry W2UP

On 4/19/2011 10:05 PM, Timothy Coker wrote:
> I currently have a 55' crank up tower with 15' of mast sticking out above my
> thrust bearing. I have an 80m inverted-v a few feet below the thrust
> bearing, a F12 C31XR right above the thrust bearing, and a Cushcraft XM240
> 12' above the thrust bearing. I do not have the property for a second tower.
>
> I love being serious during domestic contests and enjoy having fun during
> world wide contests. I enjoy DXing during the interim of the contests that
> catch my attention. However, my main interests by far are contests.
>
> I put up a Cushcraft A3WS in between my C31XR and the XM240 with all of the
> booms being placed in parallel with each other. I have about 6' of
> separation in between each of the yagis. I did this because I was still
> working on getting 100 DXCC entities on 30/17/12, which I have now
> accomplished. I also knew it would help me build up my DXCC Challenge totals
> so that I could hit 1,000 for the lumber. That is done. I lastly did it with
> the fact that I need 67 more for #1 Honor roll, something I am still working
> on.
>
> The question I have is whether having a three element yagi sandwiched in
> between my contest antennas is really worth it when my main interest lies in
> contesting. DXCC stats are cool and I do enjoy getting the new band
> entities, but it doesn't give me the same thrill as trying to place well in
> a contest. I have no idea how little or how much interaction may be
> occurring, but something has to give when extra, un-needed metal is around
> our antennas during a contest.
>
> The risk of interaction during a contest versus the reward of DX during the
> off times is at question. While taking the A3WS down would be a personal
> choice for my own interests, I imagine there must be other contesters out
> there who have gone through this thought process? Maybe other's on the
> reflector can weigh in on whether I am thinking short term and not long term
> as my DX oriented Elmer would tell me. He's only interested in a 59(9) and
> he's out of a pile up... while I want every last bit of energy oriented
> toward holding a run frequency.
>
> My initial steps towards removing the WARC yagi would be to leave the driven
> element up as a rotatable dipole mounted in-line with the booms of my C31XR
> and XM240 so as to minimize any potential interaction. My next step would be
> to eventually replace it with a rotatable 80m dipole at the same point on
> the mast.
>
> Am I over analyzing here?
>
> 73,
>
> Tim / N6WIN.
>
> Checkout http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z90/tjcoker/N6WIN%20LM354HD/ for
> my tower install project, password is "73".
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-- 

Barry Kutner, W2UP             Lakewood, CO