Topband: 160 Mtr Antenna Results

[AD5VJ Bob]

There have been many responses since I posted my question about how to make an antenna for Top Band. 

Since then I have had even more congratulating me on my recent success and warning me about the virus on Top Band.

Too late I already caught the virus :0)

I also have had quiet a few fellas telling me they were new also and wanted to know what I ended up using.

So I am writing this to hopefully help them out and to say thank you to all of you on the band itself and on this reflector for your
words of encouragement and support during my introduction to Top Band.

I honestly feel like I just joined a family instead of simply a band of frequencies. That is special and the way I always thought
Ham Radio should be.

So here is the description, hope it helps someone make Top Band even better.
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I have but one antenna. 

Not one for receive and one for transmit. I don't have the room for all of that here (yet). It would be nice but I don't right now.

I also don't have a Tower (no money) or even a very long pole.

The antenna is a Double Bazooka (75 Ohm coaxial type antenna) that I made out of junk coax for 80 meters that my son found in a
ditch on an old rotten spool.

I don't think it matters if its a double bazooka it could be a dipole and probably still work (maybe even better).

I have limited space so I had to hang the bazooka like a dipole up in the trees. 

The center is at the apex in the tallest tree I could find in the yard (40 feet) and still use my fishing pole and fishing line to
reach the top of it. 

The ends I have on two twenty foot poles which are both tied to my fence posts on my cyclone fence that goes all around the yard. 

I have a second fence (a pole fence) that goes around that fence which was once used to hold in a horse.

The other day I was wondering how I could make something work for 160. I have been very frustrated not being able to work 160 for
almost 3 years now.

Well, I wrote into the Top Band group at Yahoo and a few antenna groups out of desperation and the fellas on the Top Band group and
the "SkyWires" group wrote me back by the droves (must have received 20 emails) telling me all kinds of things I could possibly do.

One wrote me and told me to make an adapter out of a coax stub. This idea seemed most relevant to my present situation and what I
had to work with, but all the other emails are in a special folder for the future. :0)

My rig is an IC-775 (200W) my tuner is an MFJ-949B if you look that up you will see the tuner has two connections for coax pl-259
connectors (ant1 and ant2) and it has a connection for a random wire antenna and one for a balanced wire antenna.

So he said to leave the coax bare at one end of the adapter and use a pl-259 on the other end.

On the bare end I was to short out the center conductor to the shield and attach a spade lug or something to it making a good
mechanical connection for the bare end. Then attach the bare end to the "wire" connection on the tuner with the spade lug.

On the coax end I was to put a barrel connector like you would use to connect two pieces of pl-259 connectors together with.

Then I was to unscrew the bazooka from the connector at the tuner (ant2) that I normally connected it to and screw it onto the
barrel.

This shorts the antenna shield to center and makes a one wire antenna out of the dipole.

It is still center fed but produces an antenna of twice the length because it joins both sides of the dipole together as one piece
of wire.

Also might add that I had tried many things prior to this that did not work (very frustrating), but I just could not let it alone
something kept gnawing at me to try again and again and so finally this one idea did work.

Cost me a pl-259 and a 3 foot piece of coax and about a half hour of my time.

I might also add that I was warned by multiple individuals to make sure the ground at the tuner was a very good one. 

So I made sure it was good and tight. 

I was also warned not to apply full power at first but to bring things up slowly and carefully.

Please heed those warnings before doing anything at all on this.

Results:
I have no noticeable Rf in the shack.
I have to TVI or any other type of interference. 
I have New Zealand in the log
I now have so far about 15 states in the log

Before doing this I could not even get out of my back yard. Needless to say I got very very very excited.

Usually on the lower bands my monitors will flicker or I will hear it thru my computer speakers, but it seems all of the RF is being
radiated out. 

Or at least most of it is going out, to the antenna and into the air with this arrangement.

Hope this helps someone as much as it did me.

C U on Top Band :0)

  73 fer nw,
Bob AD5VJ(AAR6VM)
http://www.ad5vj.com/

Member: CTDXCC, NTCC
FISTS: # 12637
10X# 37210, FP#-1141
SMIRK#-5177, RARS #-149