Topband: SteppIR on 160

[Ford Peterson]

I have a "Rube Goldberg" antenna on 160.  I lost my tower last spring and
just cobbled together a short Rohn 25G tower and put a SteppIR 3 element
yagi at 45'.  Clearly too short for 160M.  So, I mounted a vacuum relay at
the top, attached the common to the thrust bearing plate, and ran 25' of #14
straight south and about 125' straight north.  Two separate shunts feed the
tower on 80 and 160.  The relay selects the hat for each band.

Last night, I was checking things out for the ARRL 160M contest.  I had the
SteppIR antenna parked with the elements completely retracted.  The L
antenna was behaving badly!  The auto-tuner was whirring about looking for a
match.  My hopes of playing this weekend were dashed.  Then I remembered
that the SteppIR was parked.  I pushed the 20M button on the controller.
The results were amazing.

Set to 20M, the tower loads perfect at 1805 or so.  On 17M it dials in at
1825-1830.  Press 15M and she goes up to about 1845.  10M gives me about
1860.  This is a HOOT!  A completely tunable hat on 160M!  Auto-tuner will
be OFF this weekend.  I'll tune the antenna instead.

Just an FYI.

Ford-N0FP
ford@cmgate.com