Topband: New Antenna

[Donald Chester]

>This may run counter to other suggestions you will receive, but here goes.
>Use the flag pole to support the vertical leg of an inverted L, and the
>tower
>to support the far end.  This will give the inv L an upward slope, so that
>all of the antenna is working for you.
>
>If you use the tower as the vertical support and slope the wire down to the
>flag pole, there will be a modest cancellation of radiation from the top-
>most part of the vertical section.  If effect, it will be as if the 
>vertical
>section
>was about the same height as the flag pole.
>
>If you use any vertical configuration, consider what you will do for ground
>radials.
>A reasonably symmetrical layout may dictate one support or the other as the
>center of the antenna system.

Better still, electrically bond the horizontal wire to the top of the flag 
pole using a brass clamp, and shunt feed the  flag pole, letting it serve as 
the actual vertical radiator.  Lay out a radial ground system around the 
pole.

If it is physically impossible to get to the top of the pole to attach the 
wire, maybe a better solution would be to attach a vertical whip made of 
metal tubing to the top of the tower and shunt feed the tower as a shortened 
vertical antenna.  Of course, the radial system would go around the tower in 
that case, and any guy wires would need to be insulated from the tower, and 
preferably broken up with strain insulators.



Don K4KYV