Topband: 160 meter antennas

[Dr. John Harden]

Dear Gang,

Always enjoy listening to the talk about various and sundry 160 meter
antennas. I am limited to a one-acre city lot here in Atlanta. My lot is
basically 360 feet by 150 feet. My house sits on one end of it. I have a
100 foot Rohn 45G tower with a Telrex "Christmas Tree" stack of  four
monobanders
at the top.

Naturally I have a NE sloper (4X-ray array after 4X4NJ, and bottom fed),
and a regular 1/4 wave sloper to the NW (fed at the top). However, my
most consistently best 160 xmit antenna is the
"Inverted U" after K8RRH from the famous "Minooka Special" article in
QST from the 1970's!!!
It runs from the feed end at the SE to the NW.

At the feed point is a tuning network using 3" B&W miniductor stock in
series, with a Jennings 1000 pfd vacuum variable to ground tapped at a
different point from the coax feed line. Naturally the series inductor
is tapped for resonance, and the vacuum variable is adjusted for best
SWR. The antenna goes up around 65 feet, out 100 feet, and back down
about 65 feet to ground. At each end is ground radial system. There is a
wire tying the feedpoint and far end grounds together. It models omni on
160, and like a half-square on 80 CW.

I have had very good luck with it over the years. I got the idea from
K4TEA, who is a big 160 gun here in the SE USA. He got the idea from Dr.
Dave of skyloop fame.

73,

John, W4NU
Atlanta
(K4JAG 1959 to 1998)