Topband: 160m inverted vee

[Tom Rauch]

 > I guess i'm wondering if i'm wasting my time with an antenna like this
 > or if it sounds like it might work halfway decent.

I would give the low dipole a try. At least it would get you on the air.
People do work a lot of stuff with low dipoles.

I've *rarely* observed cases where a low dipole (below 150 feet) is
competitive with or better than a high dipole (300ft) or vertical at
distances over a hundred miles. At distances over 500 miles a low dipole is
down significantly (several S units) from my verticals or 300 foot high
dipoles, except during sunrise peaks or in severe geomagnetic storms. This
is with GOOD antennas, in a clear location over open gently rolling pasture
land and woods.

The few occasions I've seen no difference when switching between low dipoles
and high dipoles or good verticals have been during severe geomagnetic
storms, when Beverages and other antennas were almost totally useless.

Sunrise peaks are the big common equalizer. Much (but not all) of the very
noticeable shortfall in low dipole performance vanishes at sunrise during
propagation peaks. Certainly if a vertical is not properly installed (such
as inadequate ground systems, poorly located, or poorly constructed), there
a low dipole might actually be better.

Skewing the legs won't significantly hurt your antenna, but I would keep the
leg ends as far above earth as I could. It is not a good idea to have high
voltage points close to lossy media like the earth.

73 Tom