Topband: 2-el array SWR question (160m)

[Mike Smith VE9AA]

Update:

I didn't see my message appear on either reflector, so with only a couple
hours of daylight of good sun (and wx this week looking bleak), I rolled the
dice and went out an shortened each raised radial by 4.5'(by folding back
the wire onto itself) and physically cut the vertical portion by around 2'.

 

My thinking was that on 160m the raised radials appear closer to the ground
electrically speaking than the 20, 40 or 80m ones do and so they must be
affected by proximity to ground more than the higher band arrays.  Also, the
160m radials physically touch a lot more trees than any other the other
arrays do.  I was pretty careful to make sure the higher band ones hardly
touched any trees, but the 160m doesn't have that benefit since I wanted
them up very high and the wire sags a lot due to its length/weight, so they
lay on some branches here and there.

 

SWR on this antenna (#2) now dips nicely but to only 1.5:1 @ 1.833kHz. Not
quite as low I would've liked but at least it's resonant on the same freq as
the other one (ant#1).

 

I still don't know what will happen with both antennas in play.

 

TNX

 

dit dit

 

Mike VE9AA

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

Keswick Ridge, NB