Topband: sloper puzzler

[Ryszard Tymkiewicz]

Hello All,
Since 14 years I was using Slopers /sloppers?/ on both 160 and 80m.Just 2
weeks ago I decided to try shunt feeding the tower.My tower is not too high,only
18m with TH6DXX and above it is 2 meters tube with A3WS on the top.
Both slopers were connected on 18m height and in the case of 160m an angle of wire
to the tower was of course quite high ,on 80m its 45 deg.
I have about 40 radials between 25m to 5 meters.
I got details from K6SE about values of the shunt /thanks Earl!/ and last two weeks I was
comparing Half Sloper with the Tower on 160m.condx were rather poor and I was not able to
do enough tests with NA but anyway here are results :
1.Favouring shunt feeding
-10 stations from JA  2S
-10 UA9/0 usually 1 S
-9M2AX 3 S
-VK6HD 3 S
-A45XR 3 S
-W4ZV and K4ZW 1 S , W8JI 3 dB
2. Only in 2 cases Half Sloper was better but it was during sunset/sunrise time:
-YV1DIG 1 S
-9V1GO once Half Sloper was better 1 S but other day Tower was better 1 S.
So,I'm sure the Half Sloper I was using last several years has been worse /sometimes a lot/ than the Tower
and I'm going to remove 160m Half Sloper and to leave the shunt feeding.
Well,yesterday I tuned my tower for 80m,its too high for gamma so I was forced to use omega matching.
I haven't made many tests but with several JA's and UA9 the difference was 10 dB or sometimes 2S
FAVOURING  HALF SLOPER!!! I don't know why..The sloping wire on 80m goes in the East direction
and maybe its the reason,anyway I'm going to leave my Sloper on 80m! Maybe its worth to have another 
switched sloping wire to the West?...I'm going to do it this afternooon  and I'll tell you about results.

                                          73 GL
                                        Rys SP5EWY