Topband: Antenna for 160?

Jim Brown jim at audiosystemsgroup.com
Sun Oct 28 19:18:05 EST 2007


On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 08:41:47 -0700 (PDT), steve d wrote:

>How about this though: short the ladder line at the tuner and 
feed 
>it as a T against ground on 160?

That can work. 

See 

http://audiosystemsgroup.com/K9YC/k9yc160TopLoad.htm

>  There are a couple issues with this. First, my shack is on the 
>second  floor. The ground line would have to be pretty long. For
>use as part of  the antenna, Im not sure this would matter much
>(ground for the rigs is  another issue). 

No, it is NOT an issue. A connection to the earth matters ONLY for 
lightning protection. That's important, but it has nothing to do 
with how well your antennna works. 

What you need is some sort of counterpoise (like my fence, or 
radials). 

>The other one is the ladder line would have to run  parallel to 
>one leg of the antenna with several feet of spacing as the  shack
>is on one end of the house. However, I think it might work better
> than anything I have, regardless of the issues. 

So did mine, sort of. Don't worry about it. :) 
>  
>  If I do try it, do I run the shorted ladder line off the 
longwire port?  Or should I use one of the unballanced SO-239's? 
If I go through the  longwire port I go through the 4:1 balun. 

Do NOT go through the balun. Just go straight to one of the SO239 
connectors. Tie the counterpoise to the chassis of the antenna 
tuner.

73,

Jim K9YC





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