Topband: 2 wl loop, worth the effort?

[Jim Brown]

On Wed,12/2/2015 11:02 AM, Don Kirk wrote:
> Therefore while I don't disagree that a vertical on 160 meters is a great
> antenna especially for DX work, for working stations in close it sometimes
> can be a disadvantage.  Based on modeling it looks like a dipole only 15
> feet off the ground on 160 meters would perform much better than my
> vertical for signals arriving at very high angles (as an example).

You are misinterpreting the model data by looking at the shape of the 
pattern rather than the relative strength of the pattern at angles of 
interest. Example -- the so-called "take off angle" simply shows the 
vertical angle where the signal is the strongest. FAR more important to 
look at the field strength at various angles as the height is varied. I 
did exactly that in an extensive modeling study comparing vertical and 
horizontal antennas of various heights. While I concentrated my work on 
80M and 40M, the results are directly applicable to 160M if heights in 
feet are doubled from the 80M plots.

http://k9yc.com/VertOrHorizontal-Slides.pdf

Bottom line -- for 160M, we mere mortals simply can't get a horizontal 
antenna too high for local QSOs, and higher is better, at least up to 
200 ft.

73, Jim K9YC