Topband: 160 M Inverted 'L'

[Tom Boucher]

Folks,

You don’t need expensive vacuum capacitors or bread slicers/toast racks to match your 160 metre ‘L’. I use a low pass L-network consisting of 0.95 microhenrys in series and 1600 pF in parallel with the coax. 

The inductor is not real and is made by slightly extending the length of the antenna, which is 90 ft up and 46 ft horizontal.

The 1600 pF cap is made up of several high voltage 6.3 KV disc multilayer ceramic capacitors in parallel. These are readily available and cost 2 or 3 GBP each from CPC/Farnell (CA05041 series made by Murata). I have been using this arrangement for some ten years at significant power levels without any failures.

73,
Tom G3OLB