Topband: 160-Meter Phased Array

[EP Swynar]

Good Day All,

Ah yes, "...the best laid plans of mice & men" --- how true.

With the grass all safely harvested(!) for the season & the mower put away, I spent the entire day here laying down radials for the two other 170' long inverted "L's" in my 3-element tri-angular array...I also had to cast a line overtop of the one tree that supported the north "L" for two years, before that wire snapped & came down in wind late last spring.

I didn't like how the vertical portion of the "L" was short some 10', or so, of where it had originally topped-off for the previous two seasons...and I was not too thrilled to see the end of the wire & its insulator moving down toward ground as I pulled on the support rope at the far end, either! It was looking more & more like an inverted "U", than an inverted "L"...

Anyway, the proof is in the pudding: try as I might, I simply can not achieve a better SWR than about 2.5:1 in the band by judicious tweaking of the base-mounted variable tuning capacitor...yet, with maximum capacity, the darn thing resonates beautifully right smack dab in the top end of the AM broadcast band!

Is this the result of some velocity factor effect upon the wire due to its closer proximity to the ground now, making it appear to be electrically longer than it physically is (much like apparently happens with ground radials when laid atop a lawn, per a note I read somewhere in one of the antenna Handbooks)...?

In any event, it'll never do: to-morrow I'm going to get a lighter weight to tie to the end of the monofilament fishing line inside my trusty old Zebco 33 reel, and go for the higher branches...if it worked well for two years before, there's no reason why it shouldn't work again!

Comments & observations MORE than welcome...

~73~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ