Topband: Coax for K9AY loop + radial questions

[Peter Dougherty]

Hi all,

Much to my delight I received my AYL-4 kit (K9AY loop) from Array 
Solutions this afternoon, and I'm hopefully going to put this antenna 
up early next week. I'm wondering if I can realistically get away 
with using 8X (since it's receive-only), with a run of under 75' or 
so, or should I spend the money on 213 or better.

Part of me says don't worry about it. Yet the other part of me says I 
need every uV of signal I can get, given my relatively high-noise 
suburban environment and proximity to my tower and other wire 
antennas. Whaddayall think? Should I spend 3x the money for low-loss 
.405" cable or just stick with the 8X?

Also another question on radials for my inv. L. I have the radial 
plate down, and roughly 1800' of #14 wire down so far (another 500' 
or so should finish it off in the next week or so, as time allows). 
As I've laid down the radials, the R and X values have not moved at 
all, and the resonance of the antenna is still broad and remains at 
the same value as when I only had 200' of wire down. I have about 
twenty 66' radials (ends spaced at about 3' over 100 degrees or so), 
then another 25 or so shorter ones (under 30') with the ends spaced 
about every foot or so. I can't really put down any more where these are now.

At what point should the bandwidth narrow and SWR values start to change?

Does it matter at all if the vertical radiator is offset from the 
radial plate by about 4 or 5 feet? The tree guys couldn't safely 
mount the pulleys where I'd wanted them (and I'd already laid out 
most of the radial field), so what I did was weight the end of the 
antenna about 3' off the ground, and I spliced in about 6 or 7 feet 
of #14 wire from the feedpoint at the radial plate to the radiator. 
Should this make much difference performance-wise?



Cheers,

Peter,
W2IRT