Topband: Radials

[John Harden, D.M.D.]

I have a 100 foot 45G tower that I have shunt fed for 160. It currently 
has 32 radials of #14 black, stranded wire from Home Depot. I have a 
circular radial bus of #06 solid copper that is clamped to the three 
tower legs with clamps using stainless steel hardware. Each radial was 
soldered to the bus using a torch. I've had good results with this setup 
on 160. The tower is festooned with rotary antennas from 80 - 10 meters 
going from 35 feet to 112 feet.

The shunt wire is only 30 feet high due to the antennas. The Omega match 
is in a commercial plastic enclosure. The series vacuum variable is 2000 
pfd due to the short shunt wire. The vacuum variable to ground is 1000 
pfd. It is flat around 1830 kHz. The bandwidth is reasonable as I use a 
4-wire cage for the shunt wire.

I may add more radials for this season but the curve becomes asymptotic 
(flattens out) at 32 radials....

73,

John, W4NU