Topband: 160 receive antennas

[John Harden]

I have tried just about everything on my 1 acre city lot in Atlanta. However, the best antennas by far that I have tried are short beverages. I use a 240 foot DX Engineering reversible beverage for NE/SW. It works exceptionally well on 80/75 (as you would expect) and quite well on 160. My NW beverage is 350 or so feet long and is uni-directional using an ICE balun (9/1) and an ICE termination resistor. Both are fed with RG-6/U from Home Depot and I utilize DX Enginerring antenna switching units and a DX Engineering feedline RF choke. The receive preselector is a 160 only unit by ICE

All of this is a compromise, but no more EWE's, flat top dipoles, flags, loops, random wires, etc. All of these are way below the short beverages. There is just no comparison as to what I can hear at this QTH.

On 80/75 receive the beverages often outperform the M2 rotary dipole at 100 feet. Sometimes the 100 foot shunt fed tower hears better on 160 than the beverages. It has 32 radials.

The shunt fed tower outperforms the Inverted "U" (used for years) as first described by K8RRH in the Minooka Special article from QST in the 1970's.

73,

John, W4NU