Topband: "T" or Inverted L?

[Herbert Schoenbohm]

Marty,  Shunt feed and don't even think about the inverted L.  The benefits from
the top hat not interacting with the beam are worth it alone.  A 72 foot tower
with a KT-34 are potentially a dream TX antenna for 160.  Concentrate on
radials, buried or elevated, and your shunt feed which should be a large
diameter cable.  Cable TV Hard-line (.500 or .750) spaced 12 inches to 24 inches
make an excellent shunt feed.  Perhaps someone would be willing to model the tap
for you.  I guess it should come in at about 40 to 48 feet with about 350 pf to
tune out the reactance.  Use a variable to get in the ball park and look at the
mesh so you can approximate the capacitance. Then replace the variable with a
good quality broadcast type fixed mica.  A setup like this should put you in the
top ten topbanders in your area.  Give it a try and forget the inverted "L".

Good Luck

Herb (KV4FZ)



--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/FAQ/topband
Submissions:              topband@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  topband-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-topband@contesting.com