Topband: Antenna Arsenals

[EP Swynar]

Good Day All,

Tree's announcement of the pending availability of the Stew Perry event of last year has gotten me thinking about my antenna situation here...

Oddly enough, I began connecting the dots during my summer DX'ing foray here on 40-meters: I use an inverted 3-element Bobtail array there that is an absolute "killer" antenna for long hauls --- but it's just a tad better than a dummy light bulb load for close-in stuff.

This fact got me thinking about my objectives on 160: not every operating session therein involves DX --- there's a ton of fun to be had with events like the Stew Perry do. So why limit myself to inverted "L"'s then...?

The bargain of the day for me at a local Hamfest last weekend was a 275' spool of #12 insulated copper wire: before the end of summer I'm going to convert this find into a 1/2-wave dipole tuned for 1.820-MHz, at 50'...

That should better balance what I have in the arsenal here for transmitting skyhooks.

As someone once said, "...You can NEVER have too many antennas for 160"...!

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ