[RTTY] RTTY Contesting and Verticals

[Don Hill AA5AU]

When I was working as an offshore communication technician, I used to stay in a building underneath a 220' self supporting microwave
tower in Venice, LA (end of the road in SE Louisiana).  I mounted an HF6 on top of this tower and was hoping the large steel tower
would act as a ground plane, but it was difficult to get the SWR down on the low bands.  It did work and I remember working an
ANARTS contest with this antenna.  It was not as good as I expected it to be though.

73, Don AA5AU
http://www.aa5au.com
http://www.rttycontesting.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: rtty-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:rtty-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of WS7I
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 11:06 AM
To: rtty at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [RTTY] RTTY Contesting and Verticals

Just thought I would add some comments on Verticals.  I have used butternuts for some time in various configurations.  I started
with it roof mounted using the kit from butternut with about 10 additional radials.

That worked the best BTW. 

Later I ground mounted it and had rather extensive radials as I installed them prior to putting in a lawn.  I then tried phasing two
of the butternuts but that never worked as well as a 2-element old Hygain yagi at 40 feet on 40 meters.

The best butternut I have ever used was at Hal Blegens back in our eary contest days. It was mounted on top of his tower at just
over 100 feet.  Hard to believe some of the stuff we did to try and get a single tower M/S station going.

That was one band opening and closing antenna and it worked on all bands 10-80 quite well.

 




 
                   
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