Topband: Radials and shunt-fed tower

[John Harden, D.M.D.]

I been reading all of the chatter about the radial issue. I have a 100 foot 45G guyed tower (3 sets of guys broken every 20 feet with large Rohn insulators). It has 32 radials and is shunt fed with an Omega match using vacuum variables. There is 2000 pfd in series with the 30 foot shunt wire and 1000 pfd to ground. It is flat at 1830 kHz but not very broadbanded. I have a #6 circular radial bus clamped to the three tower legs using stainless hadware. The radials are soldered to the solid copper bus.

The tower is festooned with rotary antennas for 80 to 10 meters. It has 6 on 15, 5 on 20, 3 over 3 over 5 on 10, 2 on 40 (full size) and an 80/75 M2 rotary dipole. It was my only real option on a 1 acre city lot here in Atlanta. I should have done this 25 years ago when I moved to this QTH. It works great on 160 on transmit. I can work anything I can hear with it. 

I am using a 240 foot DX engineering beverage (NE/SW), and a 300 plus foot NW beverage using an ICE balun and termination resistor. I hear pretty well considering my compromise lengths. The 160 meter receive preamplifier is a one band unit by ICE. I use DX Engineering switching components to switch between the beverages and have a DX Engineering feedline choke. I have found this setup to be quite useful.

73,

John, W4NU
Atlanta
K4JAG (1959 to 1998)