Topband: parallel wire verticals

[Larry Higgins]

Subject: Topband: parallel wire verticals


>
>    I've been considering building a BC Trapper (the
> wire version of the Battle Creek Special)  But I got
> to wondering if I could skip the traps and run three
> wires in parallel with a single feed instead ... The
> 40m element would be completely vertical the 80 and
> 160 elements would end up as inverted L's.
>
>     Any thoughts ? what kind of spacing would be best

I tried this 30 years ago on 20 and 15.  Maybe it would work the same way
for 160/80.

At the time, I was in northern Thailand where available materials were very
limited.  My house had a sheet metal roof which made a terrific
counterpoise.  I tried cutting the two verticals to formula length.  The one
for 20 worked just fine; on 15, the frequency was way off.  I think it was
electrically longer.  One of the few materials I had was scraps of coax.  I
put a long piece of coax in series with the 15 meter element as a series
stub and cut off a few inches at a time until it resonated.  Both bands then
worked fine.  However, I was not using an amplifier and I suspect that the
coax dielectric (RG-59) would have melted at higher power.   A vacuum
variable might be required to withstand the high rf voltage.  It's the same
problem as feeding a gamma match on a shunt fed tower.

As for separation, I guess they were maybe 5 degrees apart.

73

Larry, N9DX