TopBand: inverted-L versus dipole - oops

[Steve Ireland]

This posting now makes better sense - sorry!  I wrote it very early in the
morning...
Steve, VK6VZ

At 06:15 AM 10/29/97 +0800, you wrote:
>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 than a Tx antenna,
>indicating reasonably 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 site/ground
conductivity constrictions
>to myself.
>
>73,
>
>Steve, VK6VZ
>
>   
>
>
>--
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>


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