Topband: 160 vertical advice

[cqtestk4xs at aol.com]

First, I want to say thank you to all who responded to my post about a top loaded vertical for 160.

The antenna I wound up with was quite different than the one I proposed.  Basically, it is about 132 feet of wire.  The top  "bent" part (65 feet) is carried by a  piece of thin Phillystran stretched out from the 84 foot level on my tower out to around 350 feet to a "borrowed" neighbors property.  Luckily the property also rises in slope about 25 feet, giving me a little extra height.  The remaining 67 feet is dropped straight down to the ground.   I currently have around 40 radials laying on the ground, not buried yet. Another 20 or so to come.  Some of the radials from the 160 vertical overlap the ones from my 4 square for 80


The antenna is directly fed with 50 ohm cable and the SWR   is 1:1 at 1825 and is less than 1.3:1 across 1800-1900 kHz.  It looks into the tower in the direction of North America.

I gave the antenna its first workout tonight and it is a winner.  Worked all over the US and had about ten EU call in.  Copy was tough on this end as QRN was quite bad on the shared apex rx antenna.

Thanks  again to all who helped me find a solution to my 160 antenna.

Bill KH7XS/K4XS