Topband: My old 160 antenna

[Gary Smith]

Thinking about different 160 antennas makes me reflect on one I had 
back in northern Illinois in 94-95; I had a Heights aluminum fold 
over tower around 110' to the top where there were a 10, 15 & 20 KLM 
5 element monobanders. I didn't have enough property available to run 
out a good number of radials for the low bands so instead I made a 
pair of Shortened Delta loops connected at the apex and fed in the 
center. these were oriented N-S and E-W and were held off the tower 
by long ceramic standoffs.

I ran a vertical stub held around 8" off the tower & around 10' long 
as a gamma from the feed point. At the feed point I had a vacuum 
variable around 500 pF . Attached to the vacuum variable was a servo, 
and in the shack was the matching servo. What made it especially nice 
was the 1:1 I would get at the feed point across the band. I was only 
able to run it for a season till I had to relocate but it really 
worked well.

I was new to 160 at that time and up till then I'd made only a few 
160M contacts using random wire & a tuner. Fun the things you 
experiment with that work out well.

73,

Gary
KA1J

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