Topband: FW: Topband antenna advice

[Duncan Lindsay -MSC Valencia-]

From: "Duncan Lindsay -MSC Valencia-" <duncan at mscvalencia.com>
To: <topband at contesting.com>
Subject: Topband antenna advice
Date: Wed, 10 May 2006 11:23:28 +0200


Dear All

First of let me state that in spite of being licensed for 18 years, I 
can count the contacts I have made on top band on the fingers of one 
hand. This is a result of a) living in an urban area and b) always 
being shoved onto the daytime shift at multi-op contests.

It so happens that newly-HF-licensed EC5BHB has a weekend shack out 
in the mountains near Valencia and we are putting together a plan for 
a nice contest station there. The plan for the moment consists of a 
multi-mono tribander for 10/15/20, and vee beams for 40 which will 
also work on 20 and 15. For 80, I'm mulling over a pair of phased verticals.

But the real killer for me is top band. Since I have no experience, I 
am a bit short on ideas and that's where I'd appreciate any wisdom 
from you died-in-the-wool topbanders.

What we have available is a mountain-top shack (it is VERY windy 
there), loads of space, and a tight budget. The possibilities I've 
looked at so far are:

A simple dipole (will need to be very high, pretty difficult for us)

A vertical of some sort. Or two, phased. (this looks to be pretty expensive)

Quarter wave slopers to each main direction (could be?)

A directional half-square (looks good but I have no idea how it works)

It would seem I may also be well advised to get some kind of receiving antenna.

Like I say, I'd appreciate any help you could give me. If this has 
already been covered at some stage in the archives, then please forgive me.

73 de Duncan EA5ON