Topband: Help With First 80M 4-Square

[James C. Hall, MD]

Hi Wayne:

Instead of self-supporting elements for my 4-square, I used rope-supported wire elements hung from the top of my 120 foot tower. I used 4x4 posts in concrete to support the base of each vertical element and Budwig connectors to solder the vertical elements on the center conductor and a copper split bolt to attach a Copperweld radial to end metal fence posts. The radial is actually two radials attached at the center to the Budwig connector. This gives two elevated radials for each vertical (and act as guys to support the vertical). I ordered the 75-ohm coax feeds with bead baluns from DX Engineering and use a Comtek box mounted on the tower. The dump dummy load is sitting in the box that houses the vacuum variable capacitors for the tower shunt feed for 160M. It all works extremely well here.

73, Jamie
WB4YDL


Sent from my iPad

> On Dec 23, 2013, at 2:10 PM, Wayne Willenberg <wewill747 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Now that my new tower and antennas are up and my Beverages are working
> well, it’s time to move on to a 4-square for 80M.  (Fortunately, here in
> the coastal area of South Carolina, the winters are mild enough that
> outdoor antenna work is usually not hindered by the weather.)
> 
> 
> 
> As I did with my tower and the antennas on it, and my Beverage antennas, I
> first sought out advice here on this Reflector before ordering many
> expensive parts and making a major mistake.
> 
> 
> The 4-square I have in mind is a traditional type.  By that I mean, 4
> verticals, each ¼ wavelength long, ground mounted and arranged in a square,
> spaced ¼ wavelength apart.  Each vertical will have at least 60, ¼
> wavelength long radials under each of the four verticals.   Where the
> radials from other verticals intersect, I would have 2-inch copper strap
> for soldering the overlapping radials.
> 
> The controller I have in mind is the new one that recently became available
> from Array Solutions.  As I understand it, Jay, the owner of Array
> Solutions, has worked with ON4UN to optimize the use of a 90- degree hybrid
> coupler, as discussed in Chapter 11 of *Low Band DXing*.  I have a dual
> trace scope and an AIM 4170 to help with any “tweaking” that might improve
> the performance of the array.
> 
> 
> Regarding its location, the one vertical out of the four that would be the
> closest to my tower (the only large vertical piece of metal in the yard) is
> 280 feet away. I have modeled the 4-square and the tower, and at this
> distance I don’t see any substantial impact (less than 0.1 dB) on the
> performance of the array.
> 
> 
> All comments and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> 
> 73, and have a merry Christmas.  Wayne, KK6BT
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