Topband: City Lot antennas for 160m

[Frederick Wagner]

In response to two messages on limited space antennas for 160m -
I have a nice 1000 mile range, using 100w a Valor PHF160B whip, using a triple magmount, on the 24 by 56 foot metal roof of my mobile home. On 40m I use a pair of 40m hamsticks in a dipole configuration, which sometimes is several db better than a vertical Hustler with 40m resonator.  I've considered a dipole version of the Valor PHF160B - it might take a bit of guy support from a foot or two further up the mast, as the end up through the coil is very solidly built. The Valor sells for $80 at HRO, and there is a dipole mount for mobile whips go on  a mast for about $15, so you could put a 160m Valor dipole (two PHF-160B's) on a mast for under $200. Basically, plug and play. Oh yes - impedance matching - I use a DX Engineering MM-1 stepdown transformer - RG-8 foam from the rig to the transformer, and the 12.5 ohm tap goes to the 160m ant, and the 25 ohm tap goes to the 40 hamstick dipole. The built-in tuner on my IC-746Pro is quite happy - bandwidth on 160 is about 14 khz,
 and a neat feature is that if your transmit a lot in a short period, the loading coil warms up and expands, and the resonant frequency shifts up about 10 khz. Thermal tuning! when you stop sending for a few minutes, the resonant freq drops back to normal.  I'm quite happy with it - not king of DX, but I make contacts quite nicely! 160M is good for about 1000 miles - 40, when the band is open, across the country or around the world.
Fred Wagner, KQ6Q