Topband: Flag/Pennant Question

[Don Kirk]

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Pete W2PM wrote : Im starting to compare a half size pennant now pointing to VK from here with a Short bog.  Something  less than 150 ft.  long.  So far casual observations areshowing significantly greater output from the bog but I need to do more careful and controlled observations.  The half pennant is too low in output for the veryweak signals I am experiencing here.  I've used the half quite well to Europefor 160 however.
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This summer I installed 3 small point fed pennants (51.6% the size of full size pennants) pointing 40 deg (Europe), 160 deg(Caribbean), and 300 deg (Pacific\Asia) from the Indianapolis area, and I am using a W1FB preamp which has more than enough gain to match S meter readings equivalent with my 68 foot base loaded vertical on 160 meters (looks like my preamp still has approximately 12 db of additional gain if needed).  If interested you can hear some of my recordings using my pennants on YouTube (just do a search for WD8DSB which will bring up a listing of numerous recordings I have done).  I also have a simple website that documents my 3 point fed pennant project and the URL is http://sites.google.com/site/pennantflagantennas/

I did some slight modifications to the W1FB preamp to prevent failures of the amplifier IC when the amplifier was exposed to high signal levels from my TX antenna when I was running 100 watts, and I documented this modification last year on the topband reflector.  The modification has worked just great, and my TX antenna is only 40 feet from the feedpoint of my point fed pennants (running 100 watts I have not found the need to use any additional front end protection devices besides the modifications I incorporated in my preamp).  At some point in time I would like to try a couple of very low noise preamps in series (two in series due to the gain requirement) to see if a lower noise factor preamp offers any advantage on 160 meters compared with the W1FB preamp (I previously tried a KD9SV preamp vs the W1FB preamp using a small loop on 160 meters and did not notice any improvement in S\N ratio).

Next season I will probably try phased half size pennants in an attempt to approach the performance of a full size beverage (similar RDF values) from a small suburban lot, but will also probably test out a BOG.

73's
Don Kirk (wd8dsb)