Topband: Topband antennas - mine

[W3HKK at roadrunner.com]

My 160m antenna history:

1. (1980-1995) from central Ohio loading a 130 ft long qtr wave sloper
off a 60 ft tower: Never loaded well, but worked KP4 and a couple
others. No Euros or significant DX. ( I was a contester focusing on
10-80m.) So a couple of mults on 160 made me happy.
2. Moved to a deed restricted area in NE Ohio. Played with hidden wire
antennas (corner-fed bobtail curtains) for 12-17-20m, in a small
backyard adjacent to a golf course with tall trees while the tower and
yagis languished in the garage. Started admiring my one tall tree at
the rear of the property - a 95 ft tall Buckeye tree. Also saw some
similar tall trees along the edge of the golf course. At one point I
tried a delta loop between my tree and theirs, just 5 ft from the PL,
during the 160m contest. Figured for a couple of days in wintter they
wouldnt notice it. Wrong. The day after I put it up, they came
knocking, and I had to reel it in.

SO I was left with my solitary tree and a weak bow and arrow that
could only go up 40 ft. So I went shopping and bought a hunting bow.
Practiced shooting a string over the tree and after a few dozen tries,
finally gaged the wind properly and made it over the top. But the
arrow didnt have enough weight to pull the string down to ground
level, so snapped it off and tried again with a small u-bolt clamped
across the nose of the arrow. After playing with different weights, I
got it over and it slowly came back to earth as I jiggled the string.
That was the birth of my first real 160m antenna - a 1/4 wave INV-L.
The angle between the wire going up and the wire coming back down was
25 degrees. ( I ran out of property.). I also only had room for two
125 ft radials that ran from the base of the mighty buckeye tree in a
generally northerly direction and passed by on either side of the
house out towards the front yard, with a couple of bends to keep in on
my property.. I added about five other wires of 30-50 ft long to the
west, but couldnt do anything much to the south and east due to the
close by PL's.

When the contest began I warmed up my FT901dm ( 100w) and made a few
calls - they all came back pretty quickly! Tried a few CQ's and before
long I had major pile ups wanting to work me. I was shocked and happy.
So a casual, late entry turned into great fun and 537 qsos. Never
heard so many strong sigs on TB before. And I could actually work them
quite easily.

This was around 2000. And Ive been on 160 ever since. 

Unfortunately, when we moved to central OH, I couldnt b ring my 95 ft
Buckeye tree with me. And homes with large yards and tall trees were
impossible to find in our price range. So we settled on a 3 acre lot
in the country ( former farm land) with a solitary 30 ft tall walnut
tree with enough room to the east, south and west to run the sloper.
Apex around 25' up. The rest horizontal back down to 1 ft above
ground. I added one ground rod and it loaded up 1:1 Got on 160 and
made some contacts. It was working pretty well. I was stunned to work
4X4-LZ-JA that winter with 100w. and five radials. 

As the years passed, I added a few radials between 30' and 130 ft long
depending on the PL. and years later got up to 28 radials before the
swr stopped climbing. So I stopped adding them at that point..

Also, over the past ten years that walnut tree grew from 30 to 50 ft
tall, so my INV-L is now a 52 ft vertical leg, and 73' or so sloping
run down to 15 ft high at the east end. W3HKK now has 9BDXCC and 160m
WAS. DXCC = 154 confirmed/179 worked. but the hunt for new ones has
slowed down to a trickle. Ive averaged 88-97 DXCC entities worked each
year,. for the last five years but not many new ones. 

Europe is heard almost daily but not much from the Pacific Islands. or
Africa with the Covid travel restrictions in force. Maybe next year
things will pick up. 

Perhaps my next antenna improvement might be modifying the sloping
wire into a T. I dont think adding more radials would made a major
difference in my current INV-L's performance.

Thoughts?
Bob