Topband: Nobody can hear me

[Price Smith]

>I have not had time to build a new antenna for 160 so I tried the DX 
>sloper.  I could hear pretty well with several stations over S9 so I tried 
>throwing my call in a couple of times at 100 watts and got no response.  I 
>hesitate to use much power on the sloper because NU5D warned me his end 
>insulator caught fire.  Anyway I tried again at 500 watts, still nobody 
>could hear me so I risked it and tried 1kw, still no response.  Then I 
>figured if this antenna is so worthless I will try again  pushing the limit 
>but still got no response at 1500+ so this antenna must be totally 
>worthless.  I cannot get any higher than 60' for the center and one tower 
>has too many antennas on it to try to use it for a vertical and my other 
>tower is a crankup 3 section.  I plan to try the linear loaded dipole soon 
>and see if it will work.
> WB5OXQ

Jim,
I don't believe that the DX Sloper would be a good choice for working DX on 
160 meters.
Outside of a contest you may be able to work a bit but you also may 
struggle.

Your 3 section crank-up should be able to be shunt fed on 160. Your antennas 
on the tower will help
lower the frequency, giving it some top-loading.

You will to have all feed lines and control cables coming all the way to the 
ground.

I have some information on Shunt Feeding a tower that I would be happy to 
e-mail to you.
I have been shunt feeding my tower for around 20 years and it does work out 
fine.

Let me know if you would like the information.

73....Price W0RI near St. Louis, Missouri