Topband: New entry to TopBand with antenna question

[ZR]

Minimum VSWR and resonant frequency are seldom the same thing. You need an 
antenna analyzer to see where the reactance is zero and what remains will be 
the R and the true resonant frequency.

Carl
KM1H


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Carper" <mike at wa9pie.net>
To: <topband at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2011 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: Topband: New entry to TopBand with antenna question


> With everyone's advice, I thought I'd send a quick note to thank everyone
> and let you know what I ended up doing.
>
> I put a 160m inverted-L together.
>
> I have 130' piece of 10-gauge wire up.  Probably 80' goes straight up...
> the balance horizontal.  I started off with four 14-gauge radials, also
> 130' are laid on the ground..  There is no ground rod at the base.  I used
> a dipole center insulator, placed on a wooden stake... radials terminate 
> at
> bottom... driven element on topic.  The SWR dips to 1.2:1 at 1795 Mhz.
> It's 1.4:1 at 1830 Mhz.  I'm thinking of taking a foot off of it to raise
> the resonant frequency up above 1800 Mhz.
>
> But it looks really good so far.
>
> Thanks for the advice all.
>
> Mike, WA9PIE
>
>
>
> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 11:06 PM, Michael G. Carper <mike at wa9pie.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> Hey folks.
>>
>>
>>
>> I've been a ham for 37 years, but I've spent my entire ham "career" on
>> 80-10m (with the exception of 7 countries worked on 160m about ten years
>> ago).  For the most part, the same obstacle has kept me off TopBand that
>> prevents most - antenna space.
>>
>>
>>
>> Now that I've made DXCC on all bands 80-10m (and very close on 6m). and
>> since we've recently moved to a place with 7-acres and a nice tall
>> tree-line, I figure my options for 160m are better.  That said - we're
>> leasing this place and I've probably got 2-years here.
>>
>>
>>
>> My goal is simple - make DXCC on 160m within the next 2 years.
>>
>>
>>
>> So I'm looking for some advice about the antenna.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm very tempted to buy a B&W folded dipole and call it done. but I'm
>> curious about what others are doing.  I've got an amplifier, but no
>> high-power tuner.  So I want to avoid a tuner - the folded dipole seems 
>> to
>> get me there and I can put it up at 70' or so in the elm trees.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> Mike, WA9PIE
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>>
> _______________________________________________
> UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
>
>
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