TopBand: inverted-L versus dipole

[Steve Ireland]

Hopefully here is an interesting tail-piece to my previous postings on these
matters.  After settling back to my inverted-U dipole at 50' for 160m, I put
up an inverted-L for 80m over my 50 radial W3ESU/K8CFU mini-poise. This has
a 45' (almost) vertical section and most of the radials are between 1/8 to
1/4 wave long.

During the CQ WW SSB, this enabled me to get a 'QRZ VK?' from W3LPL -
something which other VKs active on the band at the time could not achieve.
Since then, on CW it has netted me several solid EU QSOs, well after
sunrise, showing it is working well as a vertical antenna.  Its efficiency
appears good, as there stations calling me I can't pull out of the noise -
an inverted-L on 160m for me was always a better Rx and Tx antenna,
indicating high earth losses.

So, what is my point?  Despite, my poor ground, verticals will obviously
work here on low HF frequencies - but you need to make them very big and
with lots of largish radials.  If I could have got a 90' vertical section on
160m, with radials that were twice as long as I am able to put up, my 160m
inverted-L would probably have walked all over my dipole and I would be a
complete vertical convert and as 'anti' any suggestion that a low dipole
could possibly outperform a vertical as anyone on this reflector.

What I am saying here is sometimes a low dipole will work better for most of
the time than any vertical it is possible to put up, due to ground
limitations and small available space.  This fact may make life easier for
some of those who would like to get going on 160m with similar constrictions
to myself.

73,

Steve, VK6VZ

   


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